[gnso-igo-ingo] Question on IGO/INGO rights vs. Trademark rights

[Avri Doria <avri@xxxxxxx>]

Hi,

As I understand it, in the world of trademarks, considerations of geographical 
and sovereign words, trump Trademark Rights in many cases.

In the work we are doing, it is clear that we expect that the names proper of 
the IGO/INGO would have greater rights than a Trademark that was identical for 
the purposes of registration. That is, we expect World Health Organization's 
claims to have priority over The Who's trademark claims (I am assuming they 
have a Trademark - I did not check). In this correct?

A further question comes when we start speaking of extension of the IGO/INGO 
rights to prefix, suffix and infix* strings.  Do we expect that these rights 
would subordinate any Trademark rights for similar names?

And while we are thinking of it, would extension of rights to include  prefix, 
suffix and infix* rights, have a concomitant effect on ICANN perception of 
Trademark rights.  I know this may be out of scope, so hard to know sometimes, 
but certainly an effect our recommendations might have that may be worth 
understanding.


avri

* example

prefix-IGOName.xyz  or .prefix-IGOName e.g. GuessWho.biz
IGOName-suffix.xyz  or .IGOName-suffix  e.g. .WhoTour13
prefix-IGOName-suffix.yxz or .prefix-IGOName-suffix e.g. TheWhoRulz.org