Re: [ga] Trademark-free TLDs

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Karl and all former DNSO GA members or other interested stakeholders/users,

In addition Karl, according to recent USTR trade agreements and
ongoing FTA trade negotiations, there will be NO trademark free
TLD's as some here would like to fantasize about.

And yes, the UDRP was and remains a abomination that was folly
from it's very inception by Esther Dyson...

With sunrise provisions, first use in commerce, really no longer
is possible under ICANN's scheme for the vast majority of
registrants.  Enforcement of such is of course a different matter
respective to extra jurisdictional considerations for ccTLD's
and gTLD's that if with sunrise provisions, will, and already
have stymied business innovation which is IMHO a bad thing
for new small business.  However the IP lobby has been
as many are aware of, hammering home the false idea
that strong and far reaching trademark protections are good
for the global economy.  As some here may know, that
concept has not proven true in pharmaceuticals thus far,
and IMHO will not prove true in TLD's either.

Karl Auerbach wrote:

> On Sat, 14 Jan 2006, Danny Younger wrote:
>
> > I have submitted a proposal for Trademark-free TLDs to
> > the public comment forum:
>
> You are starting from the wrong premise - there is nothing about any TLD
> that creates a free-fire zone for trademark holders to gun down anybody
> and anyone they feel impinges on their self-proclaimed right to expand
> trade/service mark law to the starts and beyond.
>
> Yet that is what you are suggesting - that except for a few reservations
> (sort of the internet analog to the kind of geographical reservations that
> North American and South African aboriginal groups were confined into) -
> trademarks on the net are to be construed as dominating and superseding
> any other right.
>
> Absent specific use it is really hard to find that a registration in a TLD
> of a sequence of characters violates any legislated regime of
> trade/service mark.  I might have "hummer.tld" and it doesn't rise to
> actionable impingement unless I actually use it in some way in commerce
> that infringes on the rights of General Motors.
>
> The simple bottom line is that *all* TLDs are subject to the
> laws of trade/service marks.  And equally, no TLD should go beyond the
> limits of legislated laws (the UDRP being an obvious case of a
> non-legislated law) to increase the rights of mark-holders, and thus
> reduce the rights of non-mark holders (it's a zero-sum situation).
>
>                 --karl--

Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 134k members/stakeholders strong!)
"Obedience of the law is the greatest freedom" -
   Abraham Lincoln

"Credit should go with the performance of duty and not with what is
very often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt

"If the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B;
liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by
P: i.e., whether B is less than PL."
United States v. Carroll Towing  (159 F.2d 169 [2d Cir. 1947]
===============================================================
Updated 1/26/04
CSO/DIR. Internet Network Eng. SR. Eng. Network data security
IDNS. div. of Information Network Eng.  INEG. INC.
ABA member in good standing member ID 01257402
E-Mail jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
 Registered Email addr with the USPS
Contact Number: 214-244-4827