First, I understand the interest IPC has in the matter.
Secondly, the answers of both Greg Krajewski and Dan Kolis make sense and should
be taken into account.I personally come to the conclusion that the existence of
any trademark conflict concerning domain names is in fact artificial.
Reasons:
THE
ENDING .XYZ DOES NOT BELONG TO THE REGISTERED TRADEMARK. This means that all trademarks
were registered without this ending and therefore there is no protection per se,
AS SOON AS YOU ADD THIS ENDING.
A trademark infringement might take place on a
"lower" level, on the website itself, trying to look like the company which is owning
the trademark. Then, this website has to be closed down. Not so the domain name.
IPC
therefore goes much too far, giving itself a higher importance than it had 5 years
ago. By interpreting the trademark law into this new direction, literally everybody
will be forced to register a trademark - to the benefit of IPC, who becomes one of
the most important factors in economy.
By the way: You can see that trademark
registrations in the last five years have more than doubled - do you understand what
I mean?
If it is possible to register generic names by adding the .xyz, without
combining particular grafics with it, we get into serious trouble, because it doesn't
leave anyone else with a different apearance space to register anymore.
If generally
nobody else is allowed to register that generic word in any other gtld anymore, because
it could be mixed up, as both are used in the Internet, it gets even worse:
One
day everything will be registered and it won't be possible to start a business, unless
you inherit a trademark.
Isn't this the wrong direction?
We are no longer talking
about protection, but about protectionism.
I therefore ask you to completely free
gtld names from trademark issues, because the trademarks are different from the mere
name+.xyz and a trademark infringement can only take place within the website created
UNDER that name.
There it can be stopped immediately through existing laws.
If
you request a "trademark" area in the Internet on the domain level, well, then just
add rtlds adding an "r" to the ending of existing ones (e.g. ".rcom") and open your
own trademark-playfield there. But please, IPC, do not interprete existing
laws in a way that adds too much to your own importance.
Thank you.
Friedrich
Kisters