[wg-b] Re: Revised IPC proposal

[Mikki Barry <ooblick@netpolicy.com>]

At 8:24 AM -0700 4/16/00, Ellen Rony wrote:
>A lot of conflicts, indeed.  According to the USPTO alone, there were
>901,805 active trademark certifications as of September 30, 1998 and
>approximately 90,000 additional trademarks issued in 1999.
>
>Multiply that times 20 potential set aside names per mark in the IPC
>sunrise proposal, and were talking about a potential for nearly 20 million
>names for the U.S. alone (although many of these marks are exact matches
>but there's no discussion about multiple owners of identical marks will be
>handled).
>
>Any estimates on how many additional marks have issued worldwide?
>
>To put into context this IPC set aside proposal, the .COM zone file
>currently contains approximately 12.25 million names.
>
>While I am not unsympathetic to those who have fanciful, distinctive marks,
>this IPC sunrise proposal is a non-starter.

Of course it's a non starter, Ellen.  The IPC is floating this in 
order to have us propose the more "reasonable" position of "just" 
exempting all trademarks in the sunrise provision.  With US 
registrations alone, if it were required that TM owners PAY for these 
registrations at lets say 35.00 each, that's 35 million dollars in 
the coffers of the registries.  Of COURSE registries would be 
interested in this new income.

Also of course, the idea that all registered trademarks should be 
exempted from regular registration processes is very dangerous for 
free speech, small business, and individual registrations.  Of 
course, these issues have never stopped the IPC from proposing 
special interest bonuses and set asides before.