[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> Maybe the policy has discouraged people from registering
> trademarked names. This of course is just a hypothesis. It
> would be difficult to substantiate.
I don't disagree with that hypothesis, but I think there's more to it.
It's likely that, early on, the large part of the existing population of
trademark holders moved to defend itself against cybersquatters and
name-nappers. This community would have used any means available, though
NSI's was one that particularly suited its interests.
More importantly, I would expect to find that there was a learning curve
among existing and expectant trademark holders, who recognized the need
to register an SLD as soon as possible, thus pre-empting the occasions
for disputes in the current period. Also, I know of several anecdotal
cases where lawyers for big companies sent out very nasty letters to
domain holders threatening action, and induced a quick registration
transfer. (There must be lots of POKEY-type incidents we don't know
about.) That's part of the learning curve as well.
If this hypothesis is correct, then other legal entities would probably
be seeing a correlating drop off in contended name disputes. Can the
legal folks here say whether that is true? Is the domain name litigation
business booming, holding steady, or declining?
Craig Simon
