Re: Who really benefits from 60-day period?

[Daniel Kalchev <daniel@digsys.bg>]

In message <90970113124909/0002082489NA4EM@MCIMAIL.COM>, Albert Tramposch write
s:
>Olivier MJ Crepin Leblond and Daniel Dalchev wrote, respectively:
>
>>>In line with some of the IAHC recommendations, why do we not confine this
>>>60 day period for registration to the .tm.int , or the respective
>>>.tm.<iso3166> domains ?
[...]
>>>Ad to this, an (official) suggestion by the IAHC that trademark issues
>>>cannot be addressed under gTLDs other than .tm.int and .tm.<iso3166>.
>>
>>This is good alternative. It is likely that will be much more in line with
>>current procedures/trends in many countries. Such separation would also make
>>it more clear that Internet domain names have primary purpose of being used
>>for addressing in Internet - while trademark names do not.
>
>The intent of the .tm spaces is not to replace trademark law in the other
>spaces.  This is made clear in section 6.2.1 of the IAHC draft:

[...]

My comments did not mean to say that domain name registration policy should in 
any way interfere and/or supplement the existing procedures to register and 
protect trademark names. This also does not mean such procedure may not become 
neccesary in future (actually, Internet as any other medium should be subject 
to trademark name protection).

However, the fact that (at least from Internet-centric point of view) the 
registration of an domain name is done for the purposes of addressing, has not 
changed yet. The latest tendency is the domain names to be used for 
advertizing. What I see as a problem is that specific wording would 
concentrate on the 'advertizing' purpose of the domain name, not on the 
addressing purpose. There are valid reasons for the trademark holders to 
protect both the addressing and advertizing usages of the 'name' - 
unfortunately, Internet is no longer an 'private network' :-), but then, it is 
not an public network either!

It seems we agree that there is need for trademark protection in the realm of 
domain names. It is however better to not turn domain names into trademark 
names 'by definition', because they are not. Back on the issue of the 60-day 
waiting period, it makes much more sense to have more stringent procedures to 
register 'trademarked names' such as cocacola.tm.bg, such as the 60-day 
waiting period, or whatever is neccesary to handle the local situation.

For the 60-day period to have effect, it should be put into law that if a 
trademark holder wants to protect their names in Internet, they should act 
within the 60 day period. Such law is unlikely to pass around the world and 
here is the confusion...

Perhaps another idea might be to consider some sort of Memorandum of 
Understanding or similar document being signed between WIPO (or other agency 
in some countries) and the respective Registries about procedures for 
trademark protection. In some cases that procedures may be restricted to the 
.tm.TLD address space.

Another issue to consider is that not all TLDAs may agree to create artifical 
2-level domains such as .tm.TLD.

Daniel Kalchev
BG-NIC, BG TLDA