Carl Oppedahl a �crit: > > At 05:26 PM 1/22/99 , Bill Lovell wrote: > >At 06:23 PM 1/22/99 -0500, you wrote: > > >>The issue that Schwimmer raises is whether an administrative law system > >>would be > >>fairer than the NSI law. Theoretically, it could hardly be worse, > especially > >>if a > >>"use in commerce," "likelihood of confusion" and "dilution" analysis was > >>actually > >>performed. > > > >My point was that insofar as the U. S. is concerned, an administrative > >law system already exists in the US Patent and Trademark Office. I > >hope that you, too, refer to "NSI law" with tongue in cheek -- NSI does > >not have and has never had the right to establish law on trademark > >related issues. > > One unhappy consequence of NSI's ill-conceived policymaking is that it has, > in fact, greatly influenced the behavior of lawyers and trademark owners. > I have reviewed many dozens of cease-and-desist letters sent by trademark > owners to domain name owners, and many of them contain language along the > lines of: > > under the NSI policy, we are entitled to the xxx.com > domain name, due to our trademark registration. We > demand that you sign the enclosed document transferring > the xxx.com domain name to us within ten days, in the > absence of which we will have no choice but to invoke > the NSI dispute procedure and other legal remedies. > > If NSI had never enacted its July 1995 policy (the one that repudiated RFC > 1591), which says that the only analysis required is to check to see if the > domain name and the trademark contain the same letters, then trademark > owners would never have been sucked into thinking that mere text > identicality somehow gives rise to trademark infringement. > > By fashioning and enacting its policy, and by stubbornly refusing to drop > it even after criticism from all sides (including the International > Trademark Association!), NSI has indeed "made law", or at least you would > think so to read these cease-and-desist letters. > > Many, many innocent domain name owners who didn't have enough money to go > to court in response to an NSI cutoff decision have seen their businesses > ruined by the NSI cutoff. It would be possible to quibble and say that NSI > didn't make "law", but on a practical level it has certainly taken upon > itself a role traditionally limited to legislatures, making law. Have any class-action suits been filed against NSI? The only large-scale suit that I'm aware of is that of name.space. It's a wonder some smart lawfirm doesn't get a couple of hundred of the losers together and sue NSI for a few billion dollars. __________________________________________________ To receive the digest version instead, send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To SUBSCRIBE forward this message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNSUBSCRIBE, forward this message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Problems/suggestions regarding this list? Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___END____________________________________________
