Re: Who really benefits from 60-day period?

[Carl Oppedahl <carl@oppedahl.com>]

At 10:35 AM 01/08/97 -0800, Kent Crispin wrote:

>Carl Oppedahl allegedly said:
>> 
>> At 11:28 AM 01/08/97 -0500, Vince Wolodkin wrote:
>> 
>> 2.  VW proposal in place.  Covetous trademark owner awakens to the
>> Internet, tries to grab a domain name that is a couple of years old.
>> Domain name owner pipes up, saying "oh, but during the first sixty days of
>> our domain name we didn't actually use it."  Judge looks at domain name
>> owner with puzzlement as to why something that they did or did not do, a
>> couple of years ago, makes any difference now.  Lawsuit drags on until the
>> domain name owner runs out of money.
>
>This isn't what the Domain owner would pipe up, however.  The domain
>owner would remain silent about using or not using the name, and
>instead pipe up "The name was published in the established place for
>publicizing new domain names for the established 60 day period.  If 
>plaintiff was concerned about use of the name they could have perused 
>that list, and they did not."

You edited out the part that I was responding to.  Let me edit it back in.
VW said:

"If a domain name registrant wants added protection, 
they can not use it for 60 days on their own."

How is a publication for 60 days any different from a publication forever,
which is what we now have?  Right now, with Whois, the publication happens
for 60 days and happens forever.  Yet what we see is trademark owners
unembarassedly presenting themselves in court two and three years after the
domain name was granted, stating that in their view the domain name, in and
of itself, constitutes an infringement.  That happens now, and would happen
just as often if we simply had a 60-day publication period followed by the
present-day "forever" publication period.