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Re: 60 day waiting period -- look at the facts!

Hi All,

Happy New year etc.

OK Explain to me these facts:

I have NetComm.ie. NetComm is not a trademark. It is a registereed business
name. Netcomm is an Australian company netcomm.com belongs to Interoffice
Network Communications in the US. There is a Netcomm in the UK and many I
am sure Netcomms in the US.

OK, The IAHC is here to "fix" TLDs. We are worried about trademark law. So
again, I am in the Middle East, the Server for NetComm.ie is in Holland,
NetComm is registered in Ireland. Where will the court case be?

Also any new iTLDs, where are the registrars? I might register a iTLD
netcomm.biz first. So all the reigistered business name hoders and
trademark people, what are they going to do? Sue me ? What court? Where?
What jurisdiction?

Explain, I thought that registrars would be appointed all over the world.
Is the IAHC going to instansiate a world court for TLD trademark disputes?

You are all still viewing this from the US perspective. Carl, I admire your
thoughts, but your experience is based upon US Law, with both parties in
the US.

There is NO INTERNATIONAL way to police trademarks nor any way to register
in one place one trademark. However I can register one domainname that maps
all over the world. DNS cannot even begin to worry about trademarks, and if
the IAHC wants to get into this, what about the ISO TLDS, where 38% of all
domain holders are. What are they going to do  there?

Trademarks are the business of the holder and the infringer. This holds for
any form of communication that the infringer uses the trademark in. It is
up to the holder to protect the mark in any and all jurisdictions that the
mark is registered in and there is infringement occuring.

Forget the 60 day period. Please :-)

Kevin

At 2:40 +0300 7/1/97, Carl Oppedahl wrote:
>At 03:43 PM 01/06/97 -0800, Christopher Ambler wrote:
>
>>> Keep in mind *who* one lodges a complaint with.  Under the IAHC proposal,
>>> the complaint is lodged with a court.  And someone who waits until the
>>> 59th day to file their complaint with a court, having taken no previous
>steps
>>> to raise their concern with the domain name owner, is going to find it
>>> difficult or impossible to talk the court into granting a preliminary
>>> injunction.
>>
>>They why 60 days, if 59 is so obviously useless? Why not 30? Why not 10? Why
>>not just not at all?
>
>I didn't say it was obviously useless.  The idea is to provide some
>non-negligible time period during which someone who feels the domain name
>*in and of itself* presents a trademark infringement could have griped, and
>failed to, thus providing some stability for the domain name owner and an
>indication why the court should be skeptical of someone who comes in after
>a couple of years claiming that the domain name *in and of itself* is an
>infringement.  Ten is too small.  Thirty might be okay, 45 better.  I am
>not absolutely tied to sixty.
>
>I have been there and done that, defending domain names against attack by
>NSI and by trademark owners.  In most of these cases I have represented the
>domain name owner.  If someone were to attack my position (you haven't, but
>others have) as somehow representing the party line of trademark owners,
>that person would be sadly mistaken.  My bias, if any, is in favor of
>innocent domain name owners.
>
>What I am trying to say is (1) I am on your side, and (2) I speak with more
>experience in this area than probably any other commenter who has
>participated in these discussions.
>
>>> With the 60-day period being followed, a grabby trademark owner will have
>>> a hard time explaining why they waited until long after the 60-day
>period to
>>> gripe about the domain name.
>>
>>Not at all. "Your honour, we were not made aware of this 60-day period
>when we
>>registered our trademark with the USPTO, had no way of knowing, and are
>just now
>>entering into the Internet arena with our advertising. Had the USPTO
>notified us
>>of this new requirement, we would have begun paying our trademark attorney
>extra
>>to police this as well."
>
>I disagree.  The USPTO is irrelevant for at least two reasons.  First, any
>domain name (no matter what the last two or three letters may be) is
>worldwide, and may offend some trademark owner anywhere in the world.
>There is nothing other than historical accident to make the USPTO
>better-known.  Second, in many cases the trademark owner who has a
>legitimate gripe may easily not have a trademark registration at all, which
>again makes the USPTO irreleveant.
>
>This "I didn't know about the sixty days" excuse will get used at most
>once.  Then some judge will laugh the trademark owner out of court, and it
>will be written up in the casebooks, and it will be unavailable from that
>day forward.
>
>>> Let's state this clearly.  Stability of URLs is very, very important to
>>> the Internet.  More important, I suggest, than instant registry of domain
>>> names.  (And please recall that if somebody needs a domain name in a
>>> hurry, they can always simply register a third- or fourth-level domain
>name, and
>>> obtain what they want instantly.)
>>
>>Except for those companies not yet on the Internet, or who want brand-name
>>(read: trademark) development. Those companies are going to sue, 60-day wait
>>or not.
>>
>>Let's state this clearly. The 60-day wait will serve absolutely no purpose
>>whatsoever. Those who are going to sue are going to sue anyway.
>
>So you favor quick registration over long-term stability.  Well, you are
>certainly entitled to your own preferences.  As I said, I feel stability is
>more important.
>
>
>---
>Carl Oppedahl, Oppedahl & Larson, patent law firm
>http://www.patents.com/ has hundreds of pages of answers to
>frequently asked questions on patent, copyright, and trademark law


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