Re: [wg-b] Japanese Sunrise Program

[Ellen Rony <erony@marin.k12.ca.us>]

The prevalence of RDNH and cease and desist letters that are sent without
examination as to use of the domain names in question suggests that
trademark owners have little to nil interest in recognizing legitimate
limits on their rights as owners of trademarks.

Further, there is an inherent inconsistency in the IPC view.  Aside from
the fact that trademark use is grounded in context and geography and exists
to protect the consumer from confusion as to source, it is also premised
upon first use in commerce.  But many of the TMOs who claim priority rights
to a domain name are NOT the sole or first users of the mark in commerce.
So, if consistency prevailed in a system that gave priority to trademark
owners, that would leave the door open for the senior user of the mark to
challenge a later TMO who has possession of the domain name.  If the answer
to this conundrum is that the domain name system has different rules, I
would respond that I fully agree. For that reason and many others,
trademark owners should not get priority in choice of domain names merely
upon the basis of their possession of rights in a mark.


>
>I think that trademark owners have legitimate concerns about the costs
>of maintaining and defending their trademarks in an expanded root, and
>the discussion in WG-B were useful to me, in thinking about these
>issues.  I would hope that in the comment period for the proposals,
>trademark owners would also show some recognition that there is a public
>interest in an expanded name space, and that there are legitimate limits
>on their rights as owners of trademarks.  Clearly there will be
>particular reasons why some of the non-commerical applications will not
>fit the mold that the TM lobby is pushing for the .com competitors.
>Likewise for some of the restricted commerical domains, particularly
>those that are industry specific.  I would hope to see some recognition
>of this in the comment period, backing up some of the reasonable
>comments I heard in Cairo on this point.
>
>  Jamie
>
>
>
>On Sat, 7 Oct 2000, John Berryhill Ph.D. J.D. wrote:
>> > >A question I've thought about alot over the past few months is
>>whether the
>> > >Internet lends itself to serious debate about deeply felt issues or held
>> > >beliefs.
>> Not as long as un-named parties are threatening to wreck havoc on the
>> registrar databases.  Probably not.  On technical management issues, yes, it
>> does that quite well.
>>
>> > > The social customs and practices that foster civil behavior
>> > >in face-to-face communication are lacking in on-line communications.
>>
>> Agreed.  If Rohn Industries had been around to actually speak with Rohn
>>Price
>> when they tried to take away his rohn.com domain name, which he uses for a
>> religious website, they probably wouldn't have acted the way they did.  It's
>> funny, though, that they immediately capitulated when faced with a complaint
>> for defamation and fraud.  Somehow they acted much more civilly when it was
>> on paper.  Still waiting for them to pay the bill, though...
>>
>>