[Upd-discuss] famous trademarks and Internet TLDs

[James Love]

ICANN's working group B is charged with looking at trademark issues, as
they relate to the creation of new Internet top level domains.  (TLDs).  

There is a proposal from the registrar community to:

1.  Have WIPO create a list of "famous" trademarks

2.  Before any new TLD is created, give the owners of the famous marks
the right to block or acquire some variations on the famous name, in
that TLD space.  

I am part of WG-B, and other ICANN groups, and I have expressed
opposition to this idea, on the grounds that

a.  ICANN doesn't have competence or authority to be a global trademark
governance institutions, and

b.  There are lots of reasons why you would not want to give a that much
names space to the famous names.  

Right now, no one can say how many "famous" names there are.  Some
trademark people suggest, informally, but usually not on the record,
that it could be as low as 200.  Others come up with estimates of 50,000
or more.  

There is some willingness in ICANN to not apply this rule to
non-commercial TLDs, like .union or .sucks.  But it would also seem to
present a problem in the many new types of domains that might be
created.  Think ford.com and ford.modeling, or lotus.software and
lotus.cars, a few examples that have been thrown around.

    Jamie

=============================================
James Love, Consumer Project on Technology    
P.O. Box 19367        | http://www.cptech.org 
Washington, DC 20036  | love@cptech.org       
Voice 202/387-8030    | Fax 202/234-5176     
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