[npoc-voice] NPOC Objection to Proposed European Union Policy with Negative Impact on Non-Profit Organizations

[Sam Lanfranco <lanfran@xxxxxxxx>]

NPOC members:

On December 5, here on npoc-voice, I asked for comments on the proposed 
European Union revision of the EU Regulation on the Community Trade Mark 
and the European Union Directive Relating to Trade Marks. The proposed 
revised wording can have a serious negative impact on the ability of 
non-profit and civil society organizations (NPO/CS) to select 
appropriate website/domain names and email address strings. The proposal 
involves the insert of the following prohibition concerning domain 
names. It prohibits "Using the sign as a trade or company name/[...], or 
as a domain name, or as a part thereof."
This wording risks promoting spurious complaints against non-commercial 
uses by making domain names effectively analogous to "a trade or company 
name". This would have a chilling effect on non-commercial expression by 
registrants in the European Union, and possibly elsewhere, via trademark 
litigation. While NPOC did not get much feedback on this issue, NPOC 
will now draft a Public Comment objection, post it here for comment, and 
then submit it to the EU.
Sam Lanfranco, Chair
NPOC Public Policy Committee