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Username: sfeibish
Date/Time: Thu, July 19, 2001 at 10:31 AM GMT
Browser: AOL Browser V5.0 using Macintosh PowerPC
Subject: mouse waiting for piece of cheese to drop on floor

Message:
 

 
Yup,

I feel like a mouse waiting for a piece of
cheese to drop on the ground.

The .info names have to run the guantlet of
the world's trademark system.

The 400 generic or city names I started with shrunk        
to 200 after passing through the US, European Union,
Canada, and Australia trademark databases.

(Actually less than 200.  After discovering that you
have to use a hyphen to uncover multi-word trademarks
in the US database (TESS), a few more city names
were dropped.)

After viewing your message, I realized "movies"
might be trademarked.  Sure enough, "movies"
is trademarked (New Zealand, 1991).

Now I've just started accessing the UK and New Zealand
databases.

I just found out today, that the UK trademark database
contains names not trademarked in the European Union (CTM)
database.

My big fear is that there is a trademark database
in some country like -insert small country name here-
that will take the rest of the names out of circulation.

I personally have wasted all kinds of money
pre-registering names.

Those poor trademark holders that need protection!

The beer manufacturer that has "game".
The fruit juice company that has "poker".
The sock manufacturer that has "computer".
The hair products company that almost got "411".
The car manufacturer that can get "800".
The hair dryer manufacturer that can get "airline".
The bicycle parts manufacturer that can get "airlines".
The razor blade company that can get "auto".
The tobacco company that can get "bank".
The jewelry company that can get "car".
The dress company that can get "calendar".
The clothing manufacturer that can get "dictionary".
The cigarette company that gets "money".
The fire extinguisher manufacturer that gets "home".

I could go on and on.

And few people care enough to complain
or make the situation public.

The news organizations and domain
buying public don't seem to have
picked up on this at all!!!!

Steve Feibish       
     

 


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