RE: Thread 2: 60-day issue

[Carl Oppedahl <carl@oppedahl.com>]

At 04:12 PM 12/25/96 +0100, David Rosenthal wrote:

>>From: 	Carl Oppedahl[SMTP:carl@oppedahl.com]

>>>In your case, if the covetous trademark owner reacts
>>>within the 60-day period, would it be allowed to get that domain name
>>>instead of the one that registered it first? If so, why and by whom? 
>>
>>Under the IAHC proposal, a covetous trademark owner that reacts within
>>the
>>60-day period will have to try to find a court that feels it necessary
>>to
>>order a transfer of the domain name.
>>
>>But please, please, think about this.  If some trademark owner decides
>>it
>>cares enough about its trademark to obsessively study the lists of
>>domain
>>names that are in their 60-day periods ... why doesn't that trademark
>>owner
>>simply register the domain name?  The very fact that it did not bother
>>to
>>register it stands for something.
>
>Maybe it did register, but the registration is still beeing processed by
>the provider of that trademark owner or so. We had at least one such
>case here in Switzerland. Maybe a colleague of the trademark owner
>happened to spot the domain-name on the list, remembered about his
>colleague and called him up. Another reason could be that someone is
>planning to introduce a new product under a really good name for which
>it paid a big amount of money (name research, consultants, ad
>preparation etc.) but did not yet start using (or registering) it in
>order not to tip off the competitors. 

Yes, in all of these cases it is possible to imagine that a trademark owner
might not yet have registered its pet domain name, and might actually
choose to act during the 60-day period.  But I suggest this is still
preferable to the present-day situation in COM in which NSI will gladly
destroy (or threaten to destroy) some domain name owner's business for no
better reason than some trademark owner covets the domain name having
failed to register it two or three years earlier.

Keep in mind that the "colleague of the trademark owner" is also likely to
suggest to the trademark owner that it should think about signing up for a
domain name rather than sleeping until some later year and only then
thinking of signing up for a domain name.