Re: Hijacked Domain Names?

["Donald E. Eastlake 3rd" <dee@cybercash.com>]

This is an implausibly large retainer under the circumstances and I think
that if they had a well known law firm on their side that would strike fear
into others, they would name it.  Coupled with their falure to mention the
actual registration numbers of these suppoed Federal Trademark registration,
I can't see why you believe them. 

Assuming they were telling the truth, I second your response.

Donald

PS:  US Federal trademark regsitration applications are made public by being
published in the US Patent and Trademark Office in advance to give people
notice.  I would think there are enough attornies into this area now that an
attempt to register a name for TLD services would be noticed. 

 On Sat, 23 Nov 1996, Paul Lustgraaf wrote:

> Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 10:09:54 CST
> From: Paul Lustgraaf <grpjl@iastate.edu>
> To: iahc-discuss@iahc.org
> Subject: Re: Hijacked Domain Names? 
> 
> 
> > We have federal trademarks on these top level domains I've got copies 
> > of the certificates right here in front of me. We have retained one of
> > the leading trademark law firms in the country and have paid them a 
> > $250,000 retainer. We have Big Guns and intend to use them. 
> 
> Which puts the rest us of under no obligation at all to point our name
> servers at yours.  This is a process of concensus, not a situation where
> you can make any progress at all by duress.
> 
> You may have made it difficult for others to use your chosen names,
> but you have no power to force the Internet to let you make money
> by such low-handed tactics.
> 
> Paul Lustgraaf                    "Change is inevitable.  Progress is not."
> Manager of Network Services
> Iowa State University Computation Center                   grpjl@iastate.edu
> Ames, IA  50011                                                 515-294-0324
> 

=====================================================================
Donald E. Eastlake 3rd     +1 508-287-4877(tel)     dee@cybercash.com
   318 Acton Street        +1 508-371-7148(fax)     dee@world.std.com
Carlisle, MA 01741 USA     +1 703-620-4200(main office, Reston, VA)
http://www.cybercash.com           http://www.eff.org/blueribbon.html