Re: Who really benefits from 60-day period?

[Michael Dillon <michael@memra.com>]

On Wed, 8 Jan 1997, Carl Oppedahl wrote:

> 1.  IAHC proposal in place.  Covetous trademark owner awakens to the
> Internet, tries to grab a domain name that is a couple of years old.  Judge
> laughs the trademark owner out of court, pointing out that the trademark
> owner hasn't offered any good excuse why it didn't speak up during the
> 60-day period.

The trademark owner is going to know in advance that the 60 day waiting
period may end up being used against them so they will prepare a legal
argument that shows why the 60 days is not relevant. For instance, if
I were to register pepsi.inet and for some reason Pepsico's trademark
people missed the notice I don't see how that would give me any protection
from Pepsico when I start to infringe upon their trademark by running the 
"Coke is better!" website at http://www.pepsi.inet

Also, you are presuming that a judge would make case law that gives that
60 day waiting period special powers. I think that in any case before the
courts involving the 60 day waiting period, trademark owners will not want
to see the 60 day period create a case-law precedent for diluting their
rights after the 60 days and so they will take measures to prevent that. 
I expect that one of those measures will be to directly launch suit
against CORE and the IAHC. In this instance, there will be no possibility
of interpleader.

> There is no way, none at all, that any domain name registration authority
> is going to take sides in a domain name dispute.  

By creating the 60 day waiting period they already have taken sides
with the trademark owners who do not currently have a domain name. They
are encouraging trademark owners to launch frivolous suits against
new domain name owners who have not infringed on a trademark and who have
no intentions of doing business in a way that infringes on a trademark.
The actions of CORE/IAHC is directly damaging to these people and in
addition the 60 day waiting period is directly damaging to a whole
class of people, those who wish to register new domains, so it could well
lead to a class action suit against CORE/IAHC.

The solution is for CORE/IAHC to *NOT* stack the deck but to merely make
sure that the public information regarding domain name owners and their
domains is easily and promptly accessible to the public. 

CORE/IAHC needs to say to trademark owners: We will not assist you in
policing your trademarks, if you wish to police them then our registry
information is readily accessible to you.

And CORE/IAHC needs to say to domain name registrants: We will not protect
you from litigation, our only purpose is to serve as a public registry in
which you can publish your claim for a domain name on a first-come first
served basis.

Note the wording in that last paragraph. CORE/IAHC does not operate an
authority which grants a licence to use a domain name. It is a publishing
service that enables domain name owners to publish their claims. It merely
collects and publishes the information necessary to identify the domain
name owners and to communicate with them by snail mail, telephone, fax,
email and DNS. CORE/IAHC is not the publisher, the domain name owners are.
CORE/IAHC is the medium by which they publish.

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