Re: [wg-b] Noncommercial protections for words

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

At 13:44 02.12.99 -0500, KathrynKL@aol.com wrote:

>If this group goes too broad, we will lose our mandate, our support and our
>intent.  The cybersquatting/UDRP looked at protection for trademarks
>(commercial marks);' the WIPO report looked at protection for famous marks
>(as commercial marks).  If we want any type of mandate in what we are doing,
>this group must stay within the scope of previous work and deal with
>commercial protection of famous marks.
>

I don't think anyone has advocated moving in the direction of making this 
group work with noncommercial marks. We're merely (I think) exchanging 
information about categories that may abut or overlap with the "famous 
marks" category.

So far, getting the rough consensus that "statutorily protected marks in 
the US only intersect the space of famous marks by accident, if at all" is 
a reasonable thing to spend a few messages on.

BTW, I think the mandate of the group is defined in terms of famous marks 
as defined by the Paris convention and TRIPS treaty; the only mark I have 
heard mentioned on the list that has successfully been defended in the US 
based on these treaties is "Cognac", which is not a trademark.

                         Harald

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