60 day wait

["Leo Smith" <barter@ntplx.net>]

Leo Smith
860 668 4000

----------
> From: Michael Dillon  Date: Sunday, January 12, 1997 7:51 PM
> 
> On Sun, 12 Jan 1997, Carl Oppedahl wrote:
> 
> > Yes, that's what you would expect.  And it's what I would expect.  Yet
we
> > see Juno Electric showing no apparent embarassment at trying to deny
Juno
> > Online the use of juno.com, a move which, if successful, would have
> > rendered seven hundred thousand people unable to receive their email.
> > Something must be done.
> 
> Something was done; Juno Electric did not succeed. I don't know if it
ever
> got to the courts but I don't see that juno.com would have great
> difficulty in getting a very fast injunction against Juno Electric and
the
> Internic simply on the basis of disruption of email service to all those
> people.
> 
> And I have yet to see any evidence that a 60 day waiting period imposed
by
> a non-judicial body like CORE/IAHC will have any significant effect on
> trademark owners who wish to pursue a domain name owner.
> 
> It seems to me that if the domain name owner is infringing on the
> trademark then they will lose anyway. And if they are not infringing on
> the trademark, they will win.
> 
> What is the point of a 60 day waiting period? 

The only point to the 60 day wait is to somehow enhance protection for
trademark rights holders, particularly from enterprising brokers who
register URLs with the intention of reselling them. While some may say that
what the brokers are doing is "wrong" or "disgusting", the bottom line is
that what these brokers are doing is LEGAL. No one has a pre-ordained right
to united.com. If a broker goes out an secures united.com and then tries to
resell it for $10,000, good for him and tough for United Air Lines, United
Van Lines, United Parcel Service, etc. So long as the broker does not
infringe on a trademark (which probably would occur in extremely few cases,
such as pepsi.com), the broker should be free to take out whatever URLs he
wants, and offer them for resale at whatever price the market will bear.
A very major goal of the 60 day wait is to somehow reduce or impede the
ability of brokers to obtain URLs and then ransom them. The only parties to
benefit from reducing ransommed URLs are those paying the ransom...namely
the trademark holders. In those instances where trademark law does not
extend protection to a gTLD, such as in united.com, it's just tough luck
for United Air Lines if they wanted united.com, but didn't get there first
to register. 
Leo Smith
860 668 4000