I agree that companies should have *reasonable* protection for their famous marks.
They have spent millions and possibly billions to achieve the recognition. However
I feel that the Universal Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) and the courts should
be the ones who are deciding whether infringement has taken place -- NOT ICANN!If
you were to ask a trademark lawyer - they would have you believe that every word
in the dictionary is a "famous mark" to someone somewhere. We should not clog up
the DNS or prevent the addition of gTLDS because company "xyz" in Nowhereville, Montana
has claimed the name "net" as their trademark. This is ludicrous!
I think that
if we were to put together a list of "famous marks" there would be 3,000 - 5,000
names on it (including McDonalds, and Coca- Cola!). But, just because you have a
small business and claim some common word that is in the vernacular - does NOT give
you the right to stop someone from buying a domain name. I don't think that ICANN
or the registars should be the ones who responsible for the policing of the namespace.
And, common words CANNOT be trademarked!
Network Solutions has always had it good
because they:
1) Never got into the game of pre-determining which names you can
or cannot buy. All names are for sale - and if there is a dispute you take it to
court and settle it amongst yourselves.
2) Was not held legally responsible for
selling a domain name. (Even if it was proven to infringe on someone's trademark).
If
we open up the can-of-worms where the registrars are directly responsible for determining
ahead of time if the name is famous or not (and for sale or not) then we will never
get anywhere. The whole system will be mired in litigation and gridlock. ICANN should
NOT be the Domain Name Police. There are several examples where NSI has abused their
position of power and opted to side with the mega-corporation instead of the small
artist. (Even though the small artist can prove to everyone that they owned their
domain name 2 years before the corporation attempted to use it for e-commerce!)
The
businesses who own these names want the best of both worlds: the freedom to use new
domain names for their own marketing purposes and the barbed-wire fence of protection
which keeps everyone else out.
The common user of the Internet (aka - "the little
guy") should not suffer or have their names taken because the businesses want to
make it easy and less costly for themselves to police their famous marks. When in
doubt - get out the UDRP and take it to court!!!
** No special favors for corporations
and businesses online! **
The Net was here first! Before there was "e-commerce"
or "virtual malls" or Internet commerce - there was the common man. The people who
built and used the Internet on a daily basis. And, amazingly enough: we did it all
without the need to buy something online...