RE: [wg-review] Trademarks and UDRP

["Dassa" <dassa@dhs.org>]

|>-----Original Message-----
|>From: On Behalf Of Kent Crispin
|>Sent: Friday, February 23, 2001 7:15 PM
|>Subject: Re: [wg-review] Trademarks and UDRP
|>
|>> Valid point well taken.  And the legal and political battles have suffered
|>> from a certain lopsidedness in terms of resources as we all know.
|>
|>That lopsidedness also extends to the investment and the potential
|>damage.  Pepsi has spent literally billions building their brand.  
|>
|>There is no question that there are some greedy bastards out there.  
|>But there is also no question that TM holders have legitimate issues.  
|>The UDRP is a vast improvement over what preceeded it; it can be 
|>further improved.

Yes, it is an improvement but there is still too much weight given to the legitimate issues of TM holders.  TM holders already have means to recover damages suffered against their trademarks.  Why should the DNS be involved at all.

If someone registed pepsi.com before the Pepsi TM holder, the TM holder could recover any damages against their trademark through existing legal channels.  The domain name pepsi.com should not be directly involved except as used in evidence by the TM holder that the use of the domain name/site caused them damage.  If there is damage being caused against a TM by a domain name registrant, then the UDRP does not address the issue of damages.  It makes a judgement and either hands the domain name over or leaves it as is.  To my mind, the UDRP does not address the issues surrounding trademarks, if anything, it confuses the issues even more.  It is expanding the legal rights conferred by the registration of a trademark.  I do not see this as acceptable.

Darryl (Dassa) Lynch.

--
This message was passed to you via the wg-review@dnso.org list.
Send mail to majordomo@dnso.org to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe wg-review" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html