Re: Exclusive License

[David Collier-Brown <davecb@Canada.Sun.COM>]

Leo Smith wrote:
> While it is true that you could not get .law except from the .law licensee,
> another licensee/registry might offer your law firm another gTDL, such as
> ..legal, or .atty, or .court. In a free market economy,  a
> licensee/registry
> for .law must compete for customers in the legal profession against other
> registries offering .legal, .atty or .court.

   Alas, we run right into trademark dilution once more...
   If I'm a lawyer, and register my trade name in .law, would
I not object strongly to someone registering the same name in .legal?
Would I not have a good case to claim that there was real danger
of confusion between the two companies, an, given I was the first
registrant, that I would suffer harm from the other person diluting
my good name by their ambulance-chasing? (:-))

   The law firms compete for customers in a fairly free market,
and need legal protection so they can in fact compete without others
taking advantage of their good name and misapplying it to themselves.
   To ensure that .law, .legal and .atty domains could compete, the
right of the lawyers to compete is diminished: they've just lost
trademark protection!

--dave
-- 
David Collier-Brown,  | Always do right. This will gratify some people
185 Ellerslie Ave.,   | astonish the rest.        -- Mark Twain
Willowdale, Ontario   | davecb@hobbes.ss.org, canada.sun.com
N2M 1Y3. 416-223-8968 | http://java.science.yorku.ca/~davecb