> On Tue 7 Jan 1997, Carl Oppedahl wrote:
>Recall that one of the system goals (I would suggest, the chief system
>goal) is for URLs and domain names to be stable. Everybody seems to be
>eager to delete the following table in their responses, so for emphasis I
>will repeat it.
>Domain name Date registered date challenged
>clue.com June 1994 early 1996
>regis.com April 1993 mid-1996
>dci.com August 1993 early 1996
>disc.com January 1993 mid-1996
>juno.com December 1994 late 1996
>How would you like to be one of these domain name owners? How would you
>like to be minding your own business, not infringing anybody's trademarks,
>and then be told (two or three years out) that you are going to be put out
>of business because someone else wishes they could have your domain name?
To Carl Leo Smith posts:
Although your point is well taken, and it would be nice to eliminate the
problem, the issue come down to two questions:
1) Starting from the base of 100% of ALL URL users, what will the
percentage of users be, over the next 3 years, who actually experience a
confrontation with a trademark claimant? Of the percentage of URL users who
do experience a confrontation with a trademark claimant, what percentage of
those confrontations will result in the URL user changing the URL, either
as a matter of settlement or as a matter of court order? If we use the past
as a gauge, there are over 800,000 URLs registered under the .com TLD. Of
the 800,000 URLs registered under .com, less than 200 trademark
confrontations occurred. That makes a ratio of one trademark problem for
every 4,000 URLs. Do you suggest that 3,999 trademark law-compliant URL
users should go through a 60 day wait in order to MAYBE avoid the trademark
confrontation of ONE URL user?
2) How effective will the remedy be in reducing or eliminating the problem.
Even if the need for a solution to the problem was sufficiently large to
warrant a remedy, the remedy itself has to be exactly that...a remedy to
solve or reduce the problem. Since no statutory provision exists stating
that a trademark holder looses all rights to the trademark as it applies to
the Internet URL if the tardemark holder fails to object within 60 days of
the notice, there will still be court cases.
Carl suggests that the Courts might tend to hold trademark holders to a
higher standard of diligence if a 60 day rule were in effect. There are two
holes in that argument as it applies to the 60 day rule.
1) In order for the Court to hold the trademark holder to the higher
standard, the Court needs to make a finding, and in order for the Court to
make a finding, there has to be arguments presented by both sides to a
lawsuit. So in order for Carl's prediction to be true, a suit has to filed
first before the Court can make a ruling.
2) In many instances the URL user may not be as deep pocketed as the
trademark holder. As a result, when faced with a trademark confrontation,
the URL user may elect to settle by withdrawing the URL, thus eliminating
the cost of litigation. In reaching the out of court settlement, however,
the URL still changes and the "Stability" for that one particular URL is
nonexistant.
SUMMARY: The size of the problem is so minuscule (one per 4,000), and the
proposed remedy is so ineffective at providing a real solution, that there
should absolutely positively be NO wait whatever.
Let WIPO set up a database of its own, and allow them to access new
registrations every day...with that information WIPO can "police" new
registrants till the cows come home...but under no circumstances should
registries do that work for them.