At 12:29 AM 2/28/99 -0800, Bill Lovell wrote:
>At 09:54 PM 2/27/99 -0800, you wrote:
>>
>> At 01:54 PM 2/27/99 -0800, Bill Lovell wrote:
>> >At 01:21 PM 2/27/99 -0800, you wrote:
>> >>At 11:57 AM 2/27/99 -0800, Bill Lovell wrote:
>> >>>At 03:00 AM 2/27/99 -0800, you wrote:
>>
>> Bill and all other EudorsPro users, under /Tools/Options/Miscellaneous,
check
>> the "Automatically Expand Nicknames" box and your reply should start to work
>> correctly.
>
>
>(Made the change -- don't know why this was pointed out, but what the hey? I'm
>so
>gullible I'll fall for anything. :-) )
Damn, it didn't work. You're still doing "you wrote"'s. <sigh>
>> Thank you Bill! As ownership isn't near as important as control, I can live
>> with your answer quite well. In this specific instance example, I create
>> .GOSHALMIGHTY, register the trademark, create a charter for it, and support
>> it on my name servers, and start taking registrations, then not ICANN, nor
>> anyone else, can legally do a damn thing with that TLD? Mayhap, ICANN, once
>> they start creating new gTLDs, would have no choice but to honor that
TLD and
>> enter it into the roots? A real strong argument can be made for that case.
>
>Um, don't leap too fast. As you may know, it took the USPTO quite a while to
>pin down the rules under which a trademark could be acquired on a domain
name.
>People were trying to register the domain name under incorrect classes,
i.e., they
>sought to register under Class 38 for telecommunications (thinking that
the domain
>name was an internet thingee) when the
>goods or services they provided were in entirely different fields. The skinny
>on this whole bit
>is at http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/tac/domain/.
Thank you for the reference.
>You either have to provide the service first or apply under an "Intent To Use"
>and then start
>providing the service. But your tacking an application for a trademark
>registration would not
>necessarily cut any ice with those who run the roots. What's to stop them from
>saying
>"you've got a trademark on nuthin', babe"?
That is certainly not NSI's stance. They bow to even a sniff of a hint of a
trademark. However, I acknowledge that ICANN is a different beastie than
NSI. BTW, from a tech stand-point, I already have the TLDs running
internally and providing service, for which I get paid. Also, the ICANN is
not the sole gate-keeper of the Internet.
>> I would posit that we have just found the natural process by which new TLDs
>> will have to be created. Further, as Marty, Bill, and I discussed earlier on
>> this list, all SLDs and other domains, registered within this TLD, can be
>> protected behind the TLD's charter.
>
>Under what theory would that be? You mean as in ibm.goshalmighty? Don't think
>so!
Hmmm, I was obviously ignoring "famous marks". They are an obvious exception.
>> It gets even more interesting in that, since the trademark-holder is held
>> responsible for maintaining the quality of that mark, they can NOT be
coerced
>> into allowing other registrars to register domains in that TLD, on the
simple
>> argument of "quality control".
>
>
>A little jab here (I hate myself when I do things like this!) Maybe the
>"quality" of .goshalmighty
>includes the fact that it provides 7/24 el perfecto WHOIS!!
I was thinking more along the lines of regular security audits as part of
the charter. The security audits are designed to maintain the quality of
the domain's conformance to the security charter of the TLD. In any case,
entry and exit criteria should be established for new domains in the TLD.
>> This shoots down a *whole bunch* of arguments made on these issues, over the
>> past few years. Admittedly, some of them mine. It also blows huge chunks out
>> of the ICANN domain name accreditation guide-lines.
>
>Not at all. There's still "you've got a trademark on nuthin." If the scheme is
>such that in the absence
>of ICANN accreditation you simply can't get onto the net so as to provide the
>service by virtue of which
>you gain the "right" to claim the trademark, the trademark "right" is never
>going to come into existence
>so you could register it. Like I said, the registration process itself
neither
>adds to nor detracts from.
<hypothetical>
Uh, I'm on the net whether ICANN likes it or not. Therefore your first "if"
fails. Also, I don't have to state a dependency of getting into the root. I
can provide the service under a private TLD and thus qualify for trademark
registration. Anyone using my name servers (which include my own
root-server cluster) can access my TLD. Now I want wider access for the TLD
and I petition the ICANN for root-server inclusion. Failing there, I file suit.
</hypothetical>
>> With these conclusions, they are moot. If they are considering adding
fees to
>> DNS registrations they should reconsider, as that avenue of revenue now
>> becomes unworkable. Since trademarks are NOT property, unless they also
>> copyrighted component (The text of a charter *may* qualify as such a
>> copyrightable work), any discussions wrt property-rights are irrelevant.
>>
>> Under these conditions I also submit the following:
>> * No one has control of SLD's, in this type of TLD, other than the TLD
>> registry. Not ICANN, not anyone else. The trademark holder has sole
>> responsibility for policing the mark. In fact, they may lose their mark
>> unless they perform "due diligence".
>> * Mandatory Arbitration of SLD registrations can not be enforced on a
>> chartered and marked TLD registry.
>> * Denial of access to the root-servers, when other TLDs are being
>> registered, is questionable at best. It may not survive judicial review.
>> Note also what I am NOT saying, this process is not mandatory unless the
>> root-server operator wants to make this process a requirement for
operating a
>> TLD. However, not following this process would potentially leave the TLD
>> operator vulnerable for take-over or other loss of control.
>
>
>These are all quite interesting observations, which might well survive closer
>scrutiny by this jolly
>bunch, but I will say you are generating lots of litigation, e.g., under
denial
>of access. By what
>authority, given the basic American principle of equal protection under the
>laws, would access be
>denied? Failure to meet the criteria for accreditation? Where did the
authority
>to set those criteria
>come from? Uncle? Can a "rational purpose" be shown for those criteria? If
not,
>no authority to
>establish them could be shown.
All of these are questions that I am also asking, as is anyone else
concerned with these matters. Although, I actually started getting involved
with these discussions, in depth, when the trademark folks took over the
DNSO.ORG document. Having formerly been vehemently against WIPO
participation in DNS issues, I have since come to realize that we are
rapidly approaching an impasse wrt Trademark/DNS issues. I am trying to
break through to some reasonable compromise where neither one breaks the
other. I think we are getting close.
>I hate to use the next phrase, because it is almost invariably
misconstrued. So
>first, if I use the
>word "police," think of the GIs out in the yard cleaning up cigarette butts,
>and NOT the law
>enforcement meaning.
This is in the same sense that I also use the term.
>> Over-all, I like it, who needs ICANN?
>
>
>Again, what I said was in the nature of Trademarks 101; I would be very
>hesitant to leap to
>too many conclusions in the specific context of domain names, ICANN, etc.,
>since the
>specific application of the kind of generic law I was describing is typically
>not so simple.
Understood.
>I am expressing general principles, and to those stated earlier I have
>described a bit of
>the theory about governments' "police power," so that the FRAMEWORK within
>which
>these issues may be resolved will be better understood. The specific action
>requires a
>specific set of facts and a ton of legal research into those specifics to back
>it up.
This seems to be new ground then. As such, law suits are expected to
clarify things.
___________________________________________________
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
___________________________________________________
KISS ... gotta love it!
