On 27-Feb-99 Roeland M.J. Meyer wrote:
> Well, one thing came indirectly out of the trademark/DNS discussions is
> that if a TLD name is trademarks, as a TLD name, the root-servers dare not
> assign it to anyone else. If they did, it would be an infringement. If I
> registered a trademark of .GOSHALMIGHTY, as a commercial trademark for a
> TLD, implement same in my private TLD roots, advertise it with my own name
> servers, and ICANN assigns it to someone else in the root-servers, then I
> will go talk to a judge and win. I might even get punitive damages.
>
> It is arguable that I might even be able to force NTIA to install such a
> TLD into the roots by court order. But I could certainly prevent it, should
> I so choose.
I don't know that I agree with this. I've CC'd this to the ifwp list to get
some feedback there.
I think you would still have to make a case that there is likelyhood of
confusion, and I think it would depend on the mark. If the mark was very
generic in nature, I think it would be much harder to make a case for this
position.
I doubt punative damanges would come into play unless you could provide it was
being done with the intent to cause harm to the trademark holder, but IANAL so
I may be incorrect here. I think this also would be hard to prove.
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E-Mail: William X. Walsh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 27-Feb-99
Time: 02:02:57
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"We may well be on our way to a society overrun by hordes
of lawyers, hungry as locusts."
- Chief Justice Warren Burger, US Supreme Court, 1977
