RE: [wg-b] Famous Trademarks

["Roeland M.J. Meyer" <rmeyer@mhsc.com>]

>Behalf Of peter.weiss@chanelusa.com
> Sent: Friday, September 24, 1999 1:50 PM
>
> As my first contribution to this stimulating debate, let me
> say that defining what constitutes a famous trademark is
> neither the easiest nor the most difficult task in the world.

Okay, let's see ...

> with the needs of contemporary commerce." Anyone wanting to
> know what that common set of principles is needs only to do a
> quick run through the 700 pages of Fred's encyclopaedic work.
> (Mostert, Famous and Well-Known Marks, Butterworths, 1997).

Oxymoronic phrase: "quick run through the 700 pages" and "encyclopaedic
", you were joking, right? Legalese doesn't speed-read well. In fact,
it's usually a sure cure for insomnia. BTW, please include ISBN with
book references.

> look at a fourth category, i.e. absolutely unique famous
> marks (AUFMs). Here's a quick and totally non-exhaustive
> list: COCA-COLA, PEPSI-COLA, MERCEDES BENZ, CHANEL,
> PERRIER-JOUET, KODAK, EXXON, TEXACO, THENEWYORKTIMES. All of
> you will instantly have recognized what these marks have
> in common: The fact that no one could possible have a valid
> good faith claim against any of them. Oh sure, somebody could
> legitimately claim COLA or MERCEDES

This sounds good, until you start looking a new and emerging AUFMs. Who
maintains the list and under what rules?

> Do I have any thoughts on how to reach consensus? Not today,
> thank you. That's a really difficult problem. Peter Weiss

I might suggest something that would immediately get my vote.

1) Set up a service, which I could get to in the Internet (a server) and
a protocol. The business model would work like this;
2) For a fee you would indemnify MHSC's registry from all claims
revolving around domain name denial, wrt trademark issues.
3) You put up a server that will respond with the relevent data withing
30 seconds.
4) I tie my registration process into it. If your server says that a
proposed name can not be used, MHHSC will reject the registration.

I would gladly pay a percentage, of the registration revenues, for such
a service. But, if I spend one dime, on a trademark case, because your
information is bad, or the algorithm was wrong, you will be sued, count
on it. Likewise, if a customer is denied a name because your system gave
a false-positive, we will also wind up in court. Actually, I will
probably send the disgruntled applicant in your direction, as well.

My point here is that many folks are real quick to make suggestions, for
the registry, yet have aboslutely no clue when it comes to being in the
"liability ground-zero zone", with your mortgage depending on it. Chuck
Gomes pointed that out to me once, three years ago.