Re: [wg-review] Trademarks and UDRP

[Joop Teernstra <terastra@terabytz.co.nz>]

At 08:43 22/02/01 -0800, Kent Crispin wrote:

>
>3) We can't stop them, because they are us.  Songbird (my company) is
>about as small as you can get, but I have a registered TM for Songbird. 
>

Yes. I have argued this too, in the past, before things got so much more
polarized and before the Hollywood people showed up in the debate.
 
The political battle with the large IP interests for influence in DNSO
policymaking is not one against TM "rights" per se. It is one against
unwarranted expansion of such rights. 

I too, am the holder of a registered trademark ("imachination"--  3M tried
to stop it, because they were just launching "Imation" at the time.) 
But it's not a "famous name" and I'm not demanding sunrise provisions in
new TLD's. I'm not demanding that DN's that are "confusingly similar" are
"taken down".


Kent, tell us honestly, did you register the TM in order to protect the
business you are doing in Songbird against others that would use that name
in your class of business, or in order to effectively hold off a TM
holder's attack against your Domain Name?
How much did it cost you to register the TM?
Is it reasonable to expect Individual DN registrants to spend that much to
"buy insurance" for their DN?

<snip>
The point is that developments in 
>one area can impact the rights of others in other areas, and when that 
>happens, legal and political battles will occur.
>
Valid point well taken.  And the legal and political battles have suffered
from a certain lopsidedness in terms of resources as we all know.

<snip>
>
>I register the domain "songbird.com".  There is a company that makes
>hearing aids named "Songbird Hearing, Inc".  They do extensive national
>advertising for their TM, "Songbird".  I get about 3 mail messages a
>week from people who have looked all over the songbird.com web site,
>trying to find the information on hearing aids.  Everyone of those
>people represent a potential sale to songbird hearing; a direct impact
>on their bottom line.

3 confused messages a week!  Makes me really wonder if you could have held
on to Songbird, if you had not TM'd it.  Have Songbird Hearing not made you
an offer for the Domain?





--Joop--
Former bootstrap of the CA/idno
       The Polling Booth 
www.democracy.org.nz/vote1/

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