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

[Jean-Louis Ecochard <jecochard@xxxxxxx>]

Dear Sam:

Thank you for initiating the public comment objection.
In this comment, let’s remember that issues could arise from a world using 
different languages. A trademark in one language may be just a common word in 
another language (I.e. Not supposedly trademarkable).
As an example, the ultimate silly application of the proposed rule would be to 
ban every domain name that include the trademark (GE) such as image.com because 
GE is part thereof the domain name …

Respectfully,
Jean-Louis
From: Sam Lanfranco <lanfran@xxxxxxxx<mailto:lanfran@xxxxxxxx>>
Date: Wednesday, 17 December 2014 2:05 pm
To: "npoc-voice@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:npoc-voice@xxxxxxxxx>" 
<npoc-voice@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:npoc-voice@xxxxxxxxx>>
Subject: [npoc-voice] NPOC Objection to Proposed European Union Policy with 
Negative Impact on Non-Profit Organizations

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