Re: [ga] poetry.org

["kidsearch" <kidsearch@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I agree with you 100% Richard. It is very troubling. No trademark for the word poetry should have ever been issued in the first place. The USPTO is not supposed to allow trademarks on generic words and phrases according to their own rules. 

An example: "Beverages and More" There was an attempt to register that as a mark. They were turned down properly, because it is too braod and generic. They ammended it to "Beverages & More!" and were granted the trademark for it to be written specifically that way.

Then, the trademark holder took the owner of the domain name beveragesandmore.com and won in arbitration. They couldn't get the tm on it written that way, but they could take the domain name from it's current owner when it isn't actually represented by the mark they were granted by the USPTO.

There is no reason that WIPO and the UDRP should be granting mark holders more autonomy on the Internet than they do offline. This is why I suggested specific categories for tlds at one point, so that nissan cars cannot sue the owner of nissan.grocrey or nissan.guitars, etc.

Chris McElroy, President, 
Kidsearch Network
http://www.mostwantednewspaper.com



  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Richard Henderson 
  To: General Assembly of the DNSO 
  Sent: Friday, December 30, 2005 10:54 AM
  Subject: Re: [ga] poetry.org


  This one disturbs me because I am the registrant of poetry.info and it highlights the way that the IP lobby acts in an overbearing way to reserve generic words from our language for itself. Why shouldn't other people run poetry websites or 'intend to run websites' or just choose a domain name for a website about poetry? Why should the commercial assume an auromatic first-claim ahead of the spiritual or artistic or personal?

  What gives IP claimants the right to reserve first claim on generic words from our language when new TLDs are released?

  How did it ever get to this point?

  Yrs,

  Richard Henderson
  http://www.poetry.info