Re: [wg-b] notification as compromise?

[Harald Tveit Alvestrand <Harald@alvestrand.no>]

At 12:27 03.09.99 -0500, eileen kent wrote:
>I believe that granting exceptions is unworkable for the many reasons that
>have already been discussed. Would a notification system be practicable?
>warranted? desireable? In other words, if someone registered
>thenissancar.org, notification would be automatically sent to the Nissan
>car manufacturer. If Nissan felt the site was in contradiciton of the
>representations (paragraph 2 in the model agreement drafted by Skadden,
>Arp, et al) then Nissan could avail itself of dispute resolution. In this
>way the logical  filter could look for the string without the dire
>consequences of barring registration. Is this a possible compromise?

One of the domains in the list of examples was RENISSANCECRUISELINES 
(misspelling, but not targeted at Nissan).
Another was TENNISSANDIEGO.

I think a "register for notification when substring appears" would be 
workable tchnically - all it would require is a trigger routine at the 
registry and someone at Nissan willing to drop false positives in the 
wastebasket.
Of course there's a cost - which would probaby have to be paid by the mark 
owner. AND it's not foolproof - enumerating all possible misspellings and
homonyms is far from easy - so you would likely miss a few.
(If the domain name database is searchable for substrings, you don't even 
have to have the registry involved - "search every 3rd day" is a business 
opportunity - but that has privacy implications too - see discussion in 
WIPO report on open databases).

Politically - I don't know. But at first blush, I like it MUCH better than 
the original famous mark proposal.

                        Harald



--
Harald Tveit Alvestrand, Maxware, Norway
Harald.Alvestrand@maxware.no