RE: [wg-c] Application Requirements

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

> William X. Walsh
> Sent: Sunday, March 26, 2000 1:09 PM
>
> The USPTO has not granted any Trademark registrations to TLDs
> Roeland.  Not a
> single one has been approved.
>
> It isn't reversing itself at all.

Excuse me William, prior the spate of September/October rulings, existing
law allowed trademarking a string used as a DNS identifier. After those
rulings, it was not. This constitutes a reversal, IMHO, even if the
aforementioned was an implicit allowance. To counter this statement, you
would have to show how the new rulings were either a "clarification", or
allowing a new activity. I don't believe that you can show either. In fact,
the new rulings explicitly disallowed a previously allowed activity, or
registration. Again, this contitutes a reversal.

What is also at issue is the fact that many SLDs, and a few TLDs, were
granted trademark status. There is, functionally, no effective differance
between them, except where they fall in the hierarchy. Previously allowed
trademark registration are now disallowed from application as TLDs. Does
this mean that no trademark-holder is allowed to use their trademark as
their TLD? Alternatively, does this mean that, if a trademark-holder uses
their mark in a TLD, that they lose their trademark rights? How does this
reflect back on their trademark rights wrt their SLDs? This could invalidate
very large chunks of the UDRP, if answered wrongly.

The base-line issue is whether trademark law should apply to the DNS, or
not. I know that the courts have already partially answered this, in case
law. Thus far, we have been seeing very capricious and arbitrary rulings and
activity wrt this issue. The problem is that, even in the DNS community, we
do not seem to have any consistency, even within the same player.