Re: Linguistic chaos

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>]

Michael,

Michael Dillon wrote:
> 
> Here are a couple of other examples of how the international venue makes
> the concept of a trademark into linguistic chaos.
> 
> Suppose someone registers MOBIL.INET
> 
> No doubt the gazette readers will be offering their services to the Mobil
> Oil Company to dispute this registration before the courts before the 60
> days are up. But wait a minute, what if it wasn't registered in the USA?
> If this name is registered by an Indonesian person, then what can Mobil
> Oil do in front of the American courts? I suppose the answer is nothing,
> they will have to take the matter up before the courts in Indonesia which
> will be quite costly for them. Even then, they are guaranteed to lose the
> case; fortunately it will be laughed out of court quite quickly. The
> reason? The courts will see that there could be no possible trademark
> infringement when one of Indonesia's largest car dealers registers
> MOBIL.INET because MOBIL is a common word in Bahasa Indonesia. It means
> car.
> 
> The next uproar comes when SEMEN.INET is registered. The League for
> Purification of the Internet will be demanding that Congress ban filthy
> words from the Internet where children might see them. However, no matter
> what the US may do, this does not change the fact that SEMEN is Bahasa
> Indonesia for CEMENT and SEMEN.INET is a perfectly legitimate domain name
> for a Cement company in one of the world's fastest growing economies in
> the world's 15th largest country.

  I couldn't agree more with this example.  And there are MANY MORE.
It has been made readely apperent to me, anyway that getting involved
in Trademark issues as a part of the Draft, are a VERY bad idea.  I 
can understand the motivation, but it just is not workable in 
Name Space standards.  That is one of the reasons I am against 
a TOTALY SHARED model is not workable for iTLD or SLD's for that matter. 
Regards,
-- 
Jeffrey A. Williams
DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java Development Eng.
Information Eng. Group. 
Phone :972-447-1878
E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com