[wg-b] RE: Arbitration (RE: (wg-b) food for thought)

["DEUTSCH, SARAH B." <SARAH.B.DEUTSCH@bellatlantic.com>]

I thought we were supposed to working on protecting famous marks in this
working
group.  The proactive exclusion can and will work.  I believe that a
qualified 
expert group of decisionmakers, using the WIPO standards, can come up with a

list of famous marks.  There should be no overall cap -- because famous
marks 
are always in the making.  The proactive exclusion would apply to the exact
mark
or extremely close variations (e.g., BellAtlantic.firm, Bell-Atlantic.firm)
and 
would afford the trademark owner the right to secure its essential, famous
name 
in the new gTLD space.  Otherwise, what you are arguing is that
"entrepreneurs" 
should have the right to confuse customers and engage in consumer fraud by 
stealing exact duplications of famous marks in the new name spaces. There 
already appear to be plenty of "business opportunities" for "entrepreneurs"
who 
steal variations of famous marks at their own peril. Bell Atlantic submitted

documented evidence of the more than 1000 domain name infringements we 
experienced for two of our marks in .com, .net and .org.  This and other 
evidence submitted by the trademark community to WIPO was far from
anecdotal.  
We're far too busy to waste our time with this process if cybersquatting
wasn't 
a huge and growing problem.


On the issue of determining what is a famous mark, of course it is risky for
all
involved if a mark does not make the list. I think we can compensate for
this, 
however, by creating a statement that failure to be included on the list of 
famous marks does not imply that the mark is not famous or any other
negative 
implication.

______________________________ Reply Separator
_________________________________
Subject: Arbitration (RE: (wg-b) food for thought)
Author:  "Harald Tveit Alvestrand" <SMTP:Harald@alvestrand.no> at GCOHUB
Date:    9/23/99 1:25 PM


At 09:17 23.09.99 -0700, Roeland M.J. Meyer wrote: 
>I believe
>that you've strengthend the resolve of many, that arbitration, 
>especially mandatory arbitration, is a "bad thing".
     
note: I had to have lessons during the WIPO process in the meaning of the 
word "arbitration".
According to what I understood, an arbitration process is binding on the 
participants - they can't go to court if they feel unfairly treated 
(slightly variant across jurisdictions, but that's the gist of it).
A mediation process is "just someone helping you talk to each other", while 
the proposed dispute resolution process is somewhere in between - sort of 
like a pretrial court with the power to grant limited interim relief, where 
the parties have the option of either accepting the judgment or taking the 
dispute to court afterwards.
     
I think you will find lots of people agreeing with you that mandatory 
arbitration (as described above) is a Bad Thing, which is why mandatory 
arbitration is NOT being considered for the Dispute Resolution Process.
     
Disclaimer: I report only on my understanding. This may or may not have a 
relationship to facts.
     
                   Harald A
     
     
--
Harald Tveit Alvestrand, Maxware, Norway 
Harald.Alvestrand@maxware.no