Re: Trademarks, random strings, sharing, reserved words

[Einar Stefferud <Stef@nma.com>]

It is interesting the Internet generates new myths at the drop of a
message...

>From Michael Dillon's message Wed, 25 Dec 1996 16:30:12 -0800 (PST):
}
}On Wed, 25 Dec 1996, Robert Frank wrote:
}
}> XX in them.  The one that won was EXXON.  So here we have an
}> instance where a random letter combination became a name.
}
}Sure, sure. It was completely random that Standard Oil, a.k.a. SO, a.k.a.
}Esso, changed their name to Exxon.
}

And so it must also be random that Governor Exon became very wealthy
when EXXON paid a large sum to acquire his commercial interest in his
own use of his own name in commerce.  The double XX did not protect
ESSO from infringement and confusion with EXON.

Gee, this sure is fun, trying to outwit the name generating geniuses
of the world by creating a new central athority for approving the use
of names in the Internet, which by its nature cuts across all possible
name uses known to humans and machines.

This is a very slippery slope, with no roots to grab onto to keep from
sliding all the way to the bottom of the pit, which I consider to be
instantiation of a truly singular central authority for approval of
the use of all names in the known universe.

I wonder how the world ever managed to survive this long without such
an authority?  Perhaps it is similar to way the US Postal Service has
survived without a directory of postal recipients, or Italy survives
without a workable telephone directory, or the Internet doubles every
year without a directory of users, or people are assigned names at
birth without needing a 60 day waiting period?

Are we having fun yet?...\Stef