Intellectual Property Claim Service for .BIZ

Wed Jun 13 03:07:17 UTC 2001

Eric:
  Frankly I see no possible resolution to the problems with new TLD's.
There is no reasonable approach short of simply opening those domains for
registrations and letting it all shake out in the courts (as do eventually
all serious trademark disputes). 
  I have long been, and to many of my business associates and perhaps my
customers dissmay, an advocate of dumping everything other than the
regional domain structure. Given that there is way too much momentum in
.com, .net and .org, it's unlikely that would ever happen.
  What I can't see is a process that requires a littany of costly IP
Claims that are only of value if you happen to have a number of special
cases all occur. One, that you correctly predict all creative
constructions of domain names that may conflict with your mark. Two, that
all parties happen to be friendly to each other and agree to the pannel's
decision. And three, that all parties really understand trademark law and
know what rights they have and don't have. I really think all three are
unlikely and, short of that, expect any final resolutions to be decided,
as usual with Trademark cases, by who has the best lawyers and the highest
tolerance for Federal court. Therefore I don't see any value in the IP
claims process, only cost, delay and grief.
  So, if you want my proposal, I reccomend that the IP Claims process be
dispensed with and we either get on with the chaos of new TLD's, or we
forget it and wait for people to give up on dwindling TLD resources and
move on the the regional domain structure.
  I hope that was interesting enough. If you think I missunderstand the
situation, please explain how. I will however respect this list (as it has
been pointed out that this is somewhat unrelated to network operations)
and not post again on this topic unless there's a desire for me to do so.

Chuck

On Tue, 12 Jun 2001, Eric Brunner-Williams in Portland Maine wrote:

> Chuck,
> 
> Were you planning on doing anything along the lines of a substantive
> alternative proposal, or just pissing generally at .biz and/or ICANN
> and/or marks and/or money and/or gravity?
> 
> Your "agreement" is with-self, which is about as useful as self-peering.
> 
> Make it useful, or at least interesting.
> 
> Eric
> 

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