dotweb writes:>2. Do registered non-profit organizations
"engage in commerce", in the legal sense? Can they REGISTER a trademark?<
PETA.org
was recently awarded to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, commonly called
PETA, under the UDRP. They have service marks on both names. The existing owner was
running a site called People Eating Tasty Animals.
>3. If the answer to 2 is no,
then are all non-profit organizations totally at the mercy of large for-profit entities,
and in danger of losing their domains via WIPO mismanagement?<
The PETA.org site
now resolves to nowhere so I don't know the latest, but the first owner of PETA.org
is reasonably wealthy and suggested he would fight it in court. Sooner or later,
perhaps not in the present case, someone is going to take a UDRP decision to court,
and then we'll have a real mess. If courts overturn a few UDRP decisions where does
that leave their credibility? And if big biz wants to go after small biz or individuals
or non-profits, why wouldn't they file in court if they lost under UDRP (not that
they have been so far).