Re: Trademarks, random strings, sharing, reserved words

[Michael Dillon <michael@memra.com>]

On Fri, 27 Dec 1996, Albert Tramposch wrote:

> >However, if you create the .ALT gTLD under the 3LD registration rules that
> >I have proposed it is simply impossible for any mark holder to lock out
> >other companies who have the same mark because the namespace begins to
> >approach infinity. That's because in the .ALT proposal no one can gain
> >exclusive use of an SLD and a particular string could be used at the third
> >level in a very large number of SLD's.
> 
> Unfortunately, this proposal to help trademark owners can become a trademark
> owner's nightmare:  that is, by making the number of spaces to police for
> trademark infringement infinite.

Not at all. If all new registrations, changed registrations and deleted
registrations are published in a daily gazette then trademark owners will 
have only *ONE* place to look no matter how many gTLD's register 3LD's
in a manner similar to .ALT.

> The solution in the IAHC draft attempts to balance the need for access to the
> DNS by trademark owners with the need to police the DNS for illegal uses of
> trademarks by others.

The only fair way to meet the trademark owners needs is to publish the
public information in a daily gazette. This gazette will be made available 
via a mailing list and it will also be published on the web via a
predictable URL such as http://www.iahc.org/gazette/1997/0122.txt
This provides trademark watchdogs with the opportunity of receiving this
information via their coice of a pull method (WWW) or a push method
(email) and both methods will deliver identical data. The gazette will be
formatted in such a way that it can be unambiguously parsed by machine
as a transaction stream so that companies which wish to maintain a 
local search database may do so. They can also reformat the data into 
other, more presentable formats.


Michael Dillon                   -               Internet & ISP Consulting
Memra Software Inc.              -                  Fax: +1-604-546-3049
http://www.memra.com             -               E-mail: michael@memra.com