Re: A question about protocol

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

Perry E. Metzger allegedly said:
> 
> 
> Christopher Ambler writes:
> > I also believe that most feel the 60-day wait is a bad idea,
> 
> The legal types on both sides of the trademark law fence don't seem to
> dislike it, though. Carl Oppedahl, who has if anything been an
> outspoken proponent of reform, seems to favor it. Even Karl Auerbach
> seems to think some length of waiting period would be good although he
> disagrees with the length.

However, the "legal types" perhaps shouldn't be the only ones to
decide.  If one out of a thousand new domain names causes a trademark
conflict, then the inconvenience to the 999 others should be
considered.  The 60 day wait seems to be predicated on the idea that
*every* name is likely to cause conflicts, and there is no evidence at
all for this.  In fact, the one in a thousand number seems more
likely.  I believe there have been something less than 20 court cases
involving trademark disputes -- if you multiply that by 30 for cases
that never reached court, that is 600 out of 600,000 cases driving
policy.  This is really a case of the tail wagging the dog. 

Carl Opendahl has put forth the speculative idea that after some the
wait will achieve some court significance, but all the legal opinion
on the list has so far has conceded that the primary benefit comes
from the fact of publication, *not* whether DNS is activated or not.

I think *everybody* agrees that a 60 day *publication* period is a good
idea.  I have yet to see a cogent set of reasons, by a legal person or
anyone else, why the DNS should be inactive during that time -- every 
set of reasons, except for Carl's speculation, are really arguments 
for *publication*, not an inactive period.

> > and that the lottery is a bad idea.
> 
> I've heard you say this repeatedly. I've also heard others say they
> like the thing.

Here, however, I agree with you.  The lottery is clearly only a 
bootstrap, and the complaints against it are obviously self-serving.

[...]

> I'm not sure that the primary basis for our decision can or should be
> the commercial interests of a fairly small number of organizations.
> The interest of the vast majority of users of the net comes before the
> commercial interests of a fairly small number.

This is exactly why I think the 60 day waiting period should be 
modified to a 60 day publication period -- we are distorting policy 
to accomodate the small percentage of domain names that do involve 
trademark conflict.  We are balancing the good of the 999 against the 
good of the 1, and overall, I think it is better for the net if we 
aim for the 999, especially if there is a "pretty good" solution 
available for the 1.

[...]

-- 
Kent Crispin				"No reason to get excited",
kent@songbird.com,kc@llnl.gov		the thief he kindly spoke...
PGP fingerprint:   5A 16 DA 04 31 33 40 1E  87 DA 29 02 97 A3 46 2F