At 11:40 AM 2/10/99 -0800, Kent Crispin wrote:
>On Wed, Feb 10, 1999 at 10:33:33AM -0800, Bill Lovell wrote:
>[...]
>> The ideas that I have advanced have been, among others, to
>> (a) use the time-honored Swedish concept of the Ombudsman
>> to look after the average citizen's rights; (b) take the whole
>> trademark issue out of the picture by letting people who want
>> to find company X go to the yellow pages as occurs in the
>> real world, and so on. The point is, to concentrate on things
>> that CAN be done in the context of existing trademark law.
>
>Your point is completely irrelevant. *ALL* of the discussions have
>been concerning what can be done in the context of existing trademark
>law. The WIPO procedures etc are *ALL* things that can be done in
>the context of existing law.
That is not correct Kent. You are using that all inclusive *ALL*. Many (not
all) discussions, including NSI policy, are supra-legal attempts to enhance
trademark law, as practiced. This includes a priori restrictions on name
use, such as Martin's ADR. Let's at least call spades, spades. Especially
in US trademark law, there is no a priori restriction on name use, with the
sole exception of "famous marks". Only post facto discovery of trademark
conflict, *after* a lengthy analysis and finding of fact. The burden of
discovering trademark violations is explicitly upon the trademark holder.
There is good opinion why this should be this way and I'll leave it to the
attorney's on this list to provide such, should they so chose.
[uncivil remark deleted]
___________________________________________________
Roeland M.J. Meyer -
e-mail: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Internet phone: hawk.lvrmr.mhsc.com
Personal web pages: http://staff.mhsc.com/~rmeyer
Company web-site: http://www.mhsc.com
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