Re: IAHC Proposal (Attacks Thereon)

[Carl Oppedahl <carl@oppedahl.com>]

At 10:35 AM 01/14/97 -0500, Alan Sullivan wrote:

>Carl Oppedahl wrote:
 
>> At 10:43 PM 01/13/97 -0800, Dave Crocker wrote:
 
>> >At 9:26 PM -0800 1/13/97, Alan Sullivan wrote:
 
>> >>OK - Simple question:
 
>> >>If I register a name - and wait 60 days - will this protect my name from
>> >>being claimed by any owner of a trademark of that name?
 
>> >       The intent behind the proposal, as I understand the legal aspects
>> >at their simplest, is to create a basis for developing the relevant case
>> >law to that effect, yes.
 
>> Sorry, Dave.  I believe his question was, even without the IAHC proposal,
>> if he imposes his own private little unpublicized 60-day waiting period on
>> one little domain name, does that protect his domain name from covetous
>> trademark owners?
 
>> The answer to that question, of course, is no.  Only a widely followed
>> waiting period, well publicized to the courts and the Internet and
>> trademark communities, would have any chance of accomplishing the desired
>> effect.

>Sorry for not being more clear. Dave's interpretation of my question was
>the correct one. I just assumed it would be silly and useless to impose
>my own private unpublicized 60-day waiting period on my domain name.
>Carl, what is your answer to the same question given the above
>clarification?

If a widely followed waiting period is set up, well publicized to the
courts and the Internet and trademark communities, and if you register a
domain name, and if you survive the 60 days without challenge ... and if
your conduct avoids infringement ... then you will be safer against such a
claim than if there had been no waiting period.

What does it mean to avoid infringement?

1.  Your domain name had better not be in conflict with some unique, coined
trademark that predates your domain name.  For example, it had better not
be Panavision, Intermatic, Actmedia, Exxon, Kodak, etc.

2.  You had better not be causing confusion among customers.  If twenty
companies have the trademark "York", and one of them (with older trademark
rights than yours) sells peppermint patties, you had better not be selling
peppermint patties through york.com.  This (2) analysis is, by definition,
impossible to perform without knowing what you are doing with the domain
name, in other words from the domain name alone it is impossible to know if
you are infringing of type (2).

So the answer, with the above qualifications, is yes, it will offer some
protection.




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