[wg-b] WIPO as an argument for famous marks protection

[Harald Tveit Alvestrand <Harald@alvestrand.no>]

At 11:09 05.10.99 -0400, Martin B. Schwimmer wrote:

>Put me down for option A as well.
>
>I suggest that if voting against a recommendation in the WIPO report that
>the voter provide a rationale for the votes.
>
>There was a WIPO process.   What do we understand our mandate to be?  I
>don't think it is merely to substitute our own self-selected vote for that
>of WIPO and the several hundred people who put in comments.  I think that
>the report should be either a critique of how well-meaning experts at WIPO
>got it wrong (if that's your view) or a method of implementation.

A comment from a participant (I've said this before):

My impression of the WIPO process was NOT that it was strongly in favour of 
implementing extra protection for famous marks.
Rather, the impression I got was that:

a) NONE of the group of non-WIPO experts really favoured famous mark
    protection.
    A few spoke out strongly against it, others thought it needed to be
    limited, if implemented at all, to minimize its damage.
b) WIPO experts had been forced into supporting famous mark protection by
    their trademark constituency, NOT because they thought it was a good idea
c) The consultation meeting in Singapore came out strongly AGAINST famous
    marks.
    The consultation meeting in Dakar thought trademark-only famous marks were
    not a particularly good idea (they thought the name "touba" deserved
    protection. Quick - how many know why? .-)

I regard the strong and unrestricted support for extra famous mark 
protection in the WIPO report as a reflection of the pressure applied to 
the WIPO team,
not as a reflection of what the WIPO experts thought was the best solution.

I think adequate arguments to justify a decision against extra famous mark 
protection has already been brought on this mailing list. If this turns out 
to be the decision of the group, this of course has to be collected into a 
report from the group; the argument has to be justified.

Does anyone have a concise collection of the arguments made so far?

(My personal opinion, published shortly after the WIPO report, is still on
http://www.alvestrand.no/ietf/wiponote.html. There are other arguments.)

                          Harald
--
Harald Tveit Alvestrand, Maxware, Norway
Harald.Alvestrand@maxware.no