Re: We need a separated ".tm" Yes Yes Finally

["Mikki Barry" <ooblick@netpolicy.com>]

> Who gets ford.reg? Ford Motor Company or Ford Modelling Agency? 

Whoever registers it first.
>  
> If Ford Modelling gets ford.reg does Ford Motor Co have a 
> legitimate complaint? 

Why should the larger company always win, Barry?  Especially if the smaller 
one, with just as much legitimacy in its name, has been on the net longer 
because they had more foresight than the larger?
>  
> How do you resolve that case? I don't think the usual ok one 
> gets ford-motor.reg and the other gets ford-modelling.reg works, if for 
> no other reason than they could do that right now in the .com domain 
> so leads to the question "ok, so why are we here?" 

First come first served.  The registries and the Internet community should not 
be resolving these issues.  They should be resolved by the courts of the 
countries involved.  Every other branch of law has "choice of law" clauses for 
national and international litigation.  Why should this be any different?

Point here is that across the 7 new TLDs, you would have the exact same 
problem.  Who gets ford.com?  Who gets ford.firm?  Who gets ford.nom?  
Especially since Ford Motor would have the trump card over *all* of these 
domains.  Is that more fair?  I hardly think so.
>  
> The problem is that trademarks are subdivided by business 
> activity, they're not unique across business activities. 

And further subdivided within the business activity.  I don't see a full 
solution as coming from the Internet community.  It should not be a matter for 
the gTLD-MOU or for WIPO.  Just as it should not have been a matter for the 
InterNIC to decide.  Both sets of domain name dispute policies are horribly 
flawed.  A registry should be merely that....a registry.  Disputes should not 
be taken up by them.  Registrars should not be forced to sign onto a new body 
of law drafted without authority and in a vacuum.
>  
> As an owner, operator and founder of a business called "The World 
> (r)" this fact does occasionally attract my attention. 

Under the current policy, you would lose "world" if another group had 
registered it in more countries than you have.
>  
> The proposal to merely divvy it up geographically (e.g., that only 
> int'l trademarks get .reg) addresses only one of the important 
> dimensions. Both Fords above are certainly internationally 
> recognized trademarks, by the proposed scheme both would have a 
> legitimate claim to "ford.reg" and we'd be back where we started. 

Which is exactly why we shouldn't be trying to resolve these issues.  Leave it 
to the soverign countries.


Mikki Barry                                 Attorney
Internet Policy Consultants                 http://www.netpolicy.com