At 12:32 AM 2/28/99 +0000, you wrote:
>Bill and all,
>
> Ok, this is our opinion as well. I was just trying to get some
>clarification on
>what you were saying.
>
> This also brings up another interesting point as well. If I or anyone
>were to
>trademark, say .STORe (read "dot Store") I must first show it as in use in
>commerce on the Internet, according to the new Trademark regs. Than
>in effect I have exclusive rights to .STORE as a Trademarl and if used
>as a Private TLD, I also have rights to in as Public TLD if it is so used?
>
Given all of your premises, with clarifications, I don't know why not. The
clarification comes from your use of the phrase "if I were to trademark X";
legally, that is a nonsense phrase. One acquires a trademark by using
it in commerce; if you then register that mark (which I take is what you
mean in saying "if I trademark X," then one effect is that the world will
have constructive knowledge of your mark, but that registration has no
effect on the status of the mark. (Here I am obviously not referring to
other countries in which the registration itself establishes the mark.)
Also, those regs are not new -- that has always been the law. What
has happened is that so many people were not understanding that law
that the USPTO simply spelled it out again in the DN context. And see
my earlier post in response to Roeland
Bill Lovell
