Re: [wg-review] [IDNH] Why domains cannot be trademarks.

[Jefsey Morfin <jefsey@wanadoo.fr>]

Don't fall into that trap about regulating 3rd level. But just another 
reason why we have:

1. to reform the DNSO so it may carry its job

2. use it to define what a domain name legally is we may start working on 
smart solutions protect TM, copyright, freespeach altogether instead of the 
inept dumb "all TM" oriented approach which does everything but protect TMs 
and buziness. Let stop talking, lobbying, voting generalities and let start 
working professionnally.

3. your guy is just rising the problem in ascii mode and in anglo saxon 
semantic. There are many threads on liberty through 3rd level 
considerations: but this is english, in a latin semantic qualifiants come 
after and not before... In Chinese , Arabic or Hindi ???

Just for consideration: if I setup http://microsoft.jefsey.com will it be 
considered as a TM infringement or pornographic if I put a page describing 
my Windows 2000 problems?

Jefsey


On 05:22 31/12/00, Sotiropoulos said:
>I am forwarding the following message in good faith.  I trust everybody on 
>this list will find it interesting.
>
>Sotiris Sotiropoulos.
>         Hermes Network, Inc.
>
>
> >From: owner-inta@interport.net On Behalf Of intanet-l@inta.org
>Sent: Friday, October 20, 2000 3:03 PM
>Subject: (INTA) A Whole New Can of Snakes
>
>I'm wondering if anyone else has yet run into/dealt with
>this problem:
>
>Cybersquatters and pornographers have apparently come
>up with a whole new way of avoiding ACPA and UDRP
>problems by making use of "superdomains" (a term I use
>for lack of a better one to refer to parts of a domain
>expressed before, rather than after, the actual domain
>name; i.e., abc.def.com, where "def.com" is the actual
>domain and "abc" is just the identity of a registered user
>on the def.com site).  We recently discovered one such
>registered user offering to sell his "identity", which
>consists of an exact match of our mark; and several others
>using identical matches of our marks in a "superdomain"
>way to operate pornography sites on domains owned by
>phony entities at phony overseas addresses.  There's no
>way even to discover the identity of these registered users
>short of filing John Doe lawsuits and issuing subpoenas for
>the domain owner's records (assuming you can actually
>find the domain owner, and assuming, if they're not in the
>U.S., that their country's laws will even honor the
>subpoena).  To the best of my knowledge, none of a
>trademark owner's current remedies speak to this issue of
>"superdomains."
>
>The simplicity of this scheme provides fertile ground for
>problems of nightmare proportions.  Imagine trademarks
>being atached in front of every commercial domain
>imaginable with foreign or phony domain owners, and you
>have a recipe for total chaos: months, if not years, and
>tens of thousands of dollars being spent to deal with every
>single infringer with many possibly never being resolved,
>during all of which your trademarks are being used in the
>most heinous and unfair ways while you stand powerless
>at the sidelines of a court system whose dockets are being
>choked to death. If I were Al Gore, I don't think I'd be taking credit for
>inventing the Internet too much longer.
>
>
>Judy Henslee
>Trademark Manager
>Harley-Davidson Motor Company
>judy.henslee@harley-davidson.com  </end>