Re: Re[2]: IAHC Proposal (Attacks Thereon)

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

Carl Oppedahl allegedly said:

[...]

> How many domain names are there?  Seven hundred thousand?  That's how big
> the problem is, if their domain names aren't sufficiently secure against
> loss to covetous parties.

The goal of the 60 day wait is to reduce litigation.  Therefore, the
size of the problem is precisely the amount of litigation, that is,
the dozen of so cases that we know about.  The number of consultations
and inquiries you or anybody else has had is far, far less significant
than the number of lawsuits.  To see this, consider the case where
there were zero lawsuits, and lots of consultations. 

[...]
> >A) It seems fairly clear that the 60 day wait will not hinder pirates 
> >at all, and may very well help them -- they wouldn't have to pay for 
> >the expense of maintaining nameservers, and every hapless trademark 
> >owner would be scouring the list, and would have to start dealing 
> >with the pirate immediately.  
> 
> "hapless", eh?  
> 
> You are, unfortunately, lumping together all pirates.  A more appropriate
> analysis would treat two "pirate" categories separately.
[...]
> The 60-day wait will not help either pirates of category 1 or 2.

And they are an insignificant set as well.

> Category 3.  Those who register domain names (e.g. clue.com,
> perfection.com) that represent words used by many companies, and who are
> not, by their conduct, infringing any trademarks.  These parties are not
> pirates at all, merely individuals or companies who awoke to the importance
> of the Internet sooner than others. 

Sally used the term "pirates" for these people.  I was followiong her 
terminology. 

> There is no bona fide need for
> trademark owners to monitor such parties, during the 60 days or at any
> other time, hence they are not "hapless".

You miss my point.  The owner of the "clue" trademark will be
monitoring the list looking for what you consider to be the real
pirates, and they won't be able to distinguish "real" pirates from
name brokers.  So they will have to send a letter to the guy who gets
"clue.com" regardless, warning him of a possible trademark
infringement.  Now that guy comes back and says "Not to worry, I'm
just a name broker, and by the way, you can buy clue.com from me for a
mere $5000."

> 
> >D) in my 
> >experience there are very few indeed who won't find the 60 day period 
> >a burden.
> 
> Did you also ask these people whether they would mind losing their domain
> name after, say, two or three years of investment in it?

Presumably if they were worried about that they would have done a
trademark search beforehand.  Absent NSI's policy they would have
almost nothing to worry about if a trademark search comes up clear.  A
trademark search takes a few days and costs a couple of hundred
dollars -- that is a far more reasonable and understandable "insurance
policy" than a 60 day wait. 

BTW, I didn't mean for my comments about  trademark lawyers perhaps 
being too close to the problem as an attack on Sally, and if it was 
so construed, I am sorry.  It is a fact that people who have been 
working on a problem sometimes have trouble stepping back from it, 
and I wanted her to consider that aspect.  The discussion about the 
60 days has become quite heated, and heat is the enemy of 
objectivity, as you are not doubt abundantly aware :-)

-- 
Kent Crispin				"No reason to get excited",
kent@songbird.com,kc@llnl.gov		the thief he kindly spoke...
PGP fingerprint:   5A 16 DA 04 31 33 40 1E  87 DA 29 02 97 A3 46 2F