Sir,Not sure what country you are from but here in the United States there are
strict laws regarding how one uses a trademark. You know why? It protects
their validity. They are an economic tool. If in any way society needs
to see paperwork everytime someone presents a tradmark in the conduct of commerce,
their value would then be greatly diminished. To the detriment of an economy.
To say that it is just a formality in cancelling the fraudulent registrations, after
"challenging" them is very "polly-anna" kind of thinking. Mind you I am not
a lawyer, but do see the importance of the issue raised here.
If someone is allowed
to present false information on a legal document then please do tell me whether or
not that is legal in your country. If it isn't illegal --no problem, case closed.
If it is, then we do have a problem. It is simple as that. In the United
States the FBI is involved when fraud on a large scale occurs. What is unclear
if the FBI would be involved on behalf of American citizens in this case. You
in fact could be correct that this is just a simple matter. I am not sure,
and would love to hear from a lawyers' point of view.
I do agree with you on a
couple of things, the "www.theinternetchallenge.com" website has been VERY helpful
and my thanks goes out to this gentlemen. The other thing is that yes there
has been some "high" emotional venting going on here. We need to be productive.
I personally think Afilias is doing what it can. It has even promised that
it will personally challenge all fraudulent registrations. Which I applaud.
I have always said that registrars cannot be trademark police. There are way
too many countries who all have different rules, etc, etc. My simple solution
is to go back to "first come first served" (on a round robin basis--if a database
of registrants doesn't exist). In the case of Image Online Design, which has
an existing registry anyone with a TM can present that TM to IOD and a "hold" can
be put on the domain.
Hope my interpretation of everything puts things into perspective
for you! If not....I tried...