Thank you very much again Alex;I will not trouble you much further (I hope).
Given
your verbose response, it is now absolutely clear that the spirit of the Law is being
abused by Big Business - with the help of Government and authorities.
It goes much
deeper than this, but if I could just make a few points.
Keep in mind the reasons
for the RTM symbol - to give warning, to advise the public that mark is legally registered
and protected in law.
Keep in mind that trademarks are to identify source of goods
or services - not claim world rights to a word.
G> Can any lawyer explain why
trademarks should have priority over people for these words? Please explain why this
does not abridge peoples right to use these words.
> First of all, my response
is based on my opinion of case law and common law - i.e. this is what courts and
arbitrators have generally ruled in the past.
Domain names were not designed to
be trademarks - ask Paul Mockapetris, creator of Domain Name System. He was asked,
what do you wish you had invented? His reply, "A directory system for the Internet
that wouldn’t be controlled by the politicians, lawyers and bureaucrats."
The whole
point of this question was that, because of the OBVIOUS problems (conflict etc),
domains could NOT be used as trademarks in the first instance.
The law is being
abused to stop justified complaint - even sucks sites have been taken. Indeed, who
should be allowed to stop peoples right to use ANY words?
It is OBVIOUS that no
company should be allowed to OWN any dictionary WORDS - it stops people using them.
It is abuse of the Law.
G> You cannot use registered mark without getting approval
for service or goods can you? It is an abuse of the mark.
> Sorry, not exactly
sure what you mean by these questions.
It is against the law to use the RTM unless
you are LEGALLY registered.
> Once again, it is my experience that this is not
true for all non-famous generic words...the complaint was almost always denied...scorpions,
lava, peepers, grow, powerstation, Donna, matress, cream.
You are mistaken. This
is the VERY TIP OF THE ICEBURG. Words taken by WIPO (alone) include: video net, roller
blade, best locks, nitro fuel, tonsil, north face, marketing mix, 0xygen, edentist,
state-farm, new-gig, video direct, iphones, open mail, traditions, open view, unicode,
southern company, pc gateway, ultra pure water, time keeper, click here, current,
beauty co, sound-choice, e-auto-parts, eresolution, body and soul, talk about, esquire,
office specialists, crew, praline, the total package, faith net, buy PC, home interiors,
big dog, euro consult, music web, RANT...etc.
G> How can Apple Computers be
the only one to be allowed to use their mark - out of thousands of others using word
'apple'?
> Apple would probably argue that its mark has greater celebrity.
Sorry
- all trademarks are legally afforded the same protection - are they not?
This
is just the word apple (shared by thousands)- there are untold thousands of other
marks (also shared by thousands), that have the same unfair advantage over others
using same words.
What is wrong with replacing the registered trademark symbol
with restricted TLD of .REG?
It could perform the same function as the RTM symbol
- could it not?
Redirect apple.com to apple.computer.us.reg - to avoid 'consumer
confusion', 'trademark conflict' and 'passing off'.
Then apple.newTLD could go
to apple.record.uk.reg without any of these problems.
Can you tell the difference
between apple.computer.us.reg and apple.record.uk.reg?
Apple Computers can still
use apple.com - just redirected to the .reg to avoid these problems.
So problem
solved then ;-)
They have perverted trademark law to take charge of the Domain
Name System. It is clear that those responsible are corrupt.