Re: trademark law

[Carl Oppedahl <carl@oppedahl.com>]

At 12:25 PM 12/12/96 -0700, Net Sales wrote:

>Michael Dillon <michael@memra.com> writes:
>
>>On Thu, 12 Dec 1996, Net Sales wrote:
>>
>>> >There is no current law regarding domain names.
>>>
>>> current trademark law would apply to any use of a trademark, including
>>> domain names.

>>This is an oversimplification. Trademark laws do not apply to
>>non-commercial use of trademarks. And there is no current legislation or
>>case law that deals with domain names.

>Bear with me here a moment, but how is a domain name a non-commercial use?
>Ford doesn't have a web site so it can solicit charitable donations to its
>Foundation.  Baskin Robbins is not providing a web site for the benefit of
>handicapped children.

I have seen plenty of domain names that are not commercial activity.  I
counseled a client the other day, who had selected a word from the
dictionary, a word that is not held uniquely as a trademark by any single
company, and they registered a domain name of that word plus .com. 

And they aren't doing anything commercial with it.  

And the owner of one of the trademarks has written a cease-and-desist letter
demanding that the domain name be handed over.

Just now, all our client does is receive family email through it.  They've
never had a web site with the name.  They've never used the domain name in
any publicly observable way, not on business cards, not in advertisements,
nothing.

Maybe someday they would use it for something.  And whatever they might use
it for, would have no overlap with the goods or services of any of the
companies that happen to have a trademark of that word.

But they aren't doing anything commercial with it.

And, unlike Mr. Toeppen, they aren't offering it for sale.

Amazingly, the lawyer who wrote the brusque cease-and-desist letter to our
client admits *in the cease and desist letter* that our client is not doing
anything with the domain name.

We shall see what happens next.

---
Carl Oppedahl, Oppedahl & Larson, patent law firm
http://www.patents.com/ has hundreds of pages of answers to 
frequently asked questions on patent, copyright, and trademark law