Re: [wg-c] trademark law & new gTLDs

[Mark Measday <measday@ibm.net>]

Elizabeth,

Look forward to it. It might be also interesting to see a codification which
attempts to reconcile nationally applied tm law with ccTLD practice, was this part
of the study?

For example, and I am perfectly willing to stand correction here, one might hazard
a guess that Nominet's entirely laudable attempt to mirror changes in UK company
law (not the same as tm classes, of course), where companies have to choose
between .co.uk, the initial and most popular; .plc.uk and .ltd.uk, in acord with
company procedures,  has lead to a potentially complex and incoherent .uk
namespace which is (unfortunately?) driving companies towards .com solutions, as
the simplicity and globality of .com/.org/.net appeals increasingly to business
users. There is no guilty party here, the legal changes antedate the internet, but
the rate of business adoption is comparatively slow. Mr Postel's effort with .us
obviously serve as a warning for complex taxonomies, however.

One drinks coffee in the morning not arbusta arabica Linneaneaie (?). Kent Crispin
and Ken Stubbs, to pick two worthy gentlemen whose opinion has carried weight in
these discussions for example, pick up an earwig in their gardens in Florida and
elsewhere, not forficula auricularia, I suspect, and not knowing where it came
from. The taxonomological description coexists with the immediate referent in use.

MM

Elisabeth PORTENEUVE wrote:

> Jumping in your conversation.
>
> ccTLDs are not homogenous, and the sTLDs are completely
> different from one country to another. In the UK
> you have .co.uk similar to the NSI .com, but in
> Italy .co.it is reserved for Como District.
>
> I made a study last May (yet to be finished) about practices
> in 11 selected european ccTLDs. I will try to either provide
> you with the URL or summarise this weekend.
>
> The ccTLDs practices may be extremely usefull for gTLD
> consideration -- it is a large field of implementations
> and every day practices, whereas we have only theoretical
> approach on this list.
>
> Elisabeth Porteneuve
> --
>
> Keith wrote:
> >
> >  Mark Measday <measday@ibm.net> wrote
> >
> > >Keith,
> > >
> > >Sounds incredibly sensible, although one regrets reducing the sensitive
> > arcana
> > >of your profession to the crudities of YP. I doubt US, UK and Spanish YPs
> > would
> > >maintain the same categorizations, for example, to introduce one of the
> > >international complications.
> >
> > For the reasons you give, I think this is the sort of initiative which would
> > best be led nationally by innovative ccTLD operators, and I would hold off
> > looking at gTLD categorisation (and adding lots of GTLDs).
> >
> > There may be a case for considering selected clear cases where international
> > consensus could be shown (e.g for registration by airlines in a .airline for
> > example)  and ICANN could invite proposals for consideration by the DNSO for
> > that purpose.
> >
> > >Shouldn't businesses pay for a facility of such ease-of-use, where DNS/tm
> > >issues are reconciled and there is reduced risk of legal liability for the
> > >various infringements?
> >
> > If it were exclusively a business issue, perhaps, but it isn't.  It's a
> > general issue of organising the namespace in an intelligent and logical
> > fashion in the greater interest of ALL internet users, consumers, businesses
> > and the rest, not just for the private profit of a few would-be registry
> > operators.
> >
> > >Who would sponsor the production of the appropriate taxonomy, WIPO? Surely
> > >something exists somewhere, already?
> >
> > At national level I would see ccTLD operators taking a pro-active view and
> > getting a broad based consultative committee together themselves of users,
> > business, YP etc
> >
> >
> > >Would there be any need for reconciliation with existing national and
> > >reciprocal tm arrangements for the mapping of global DNS to international
> > tm
> > >taxonomies?
> >
> > It would clearly be desirable for national ccTLDs sharing the same language
> > to have consistent SLDs for the YP categories, but it's not essential (cf.
> > .co.uk .com.au etc)
> >
> > K
> >
> >

--



Mark Measday
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