Jeff and all, > > Neither I, nor any other partisan of the gtld-mou, believes > > that the family name "Disney" or "MacDonald" should be kept > > off the 'net because of a clash with a trademark. That's why the > > gtld-mou called for the creation of the .nom top level domain, and > > why, for a time, we were preparing a char ter for that domain that > > would have enabled the governance system to keep the .nom > > domain open for that purpose. > > And the argument of using .NOM as a solution is in itself a > straw man as well, all be it a different breed of one. As such, it > does not provide for a reasonable solution within a specific Name > Space. IF I have registered Macdonnalds.com and all of its > potential derivatives or any one of it's derivatives than I have > superior rights to that TM and it's use on the internet as a DN in > any of the name spaces in which I have registered an appropriate TM > or have been granted a TM. Think about it: either you accept that a *reasonable use of a TLD (.nom or any other) is to register a *unique name, and thus forget about the 'derivatives' -- or you hold that any conceivable variation *including any and all dotted pre- and post-pends,* on a TM filed in some land-locked registry, is covered by 'superior rights,' and thus toss the whole concept of the DNS as a convenient internet *usage (not operation, of course) out the window (not to mention the chilling effect it will have on *all other* forms of IP). Which view of the world do you prefer, that of an 'intellectual' elite (business, in this case) whose ideas happen to have a hundred years of blundering precedence, or the rest-of-the-world who couldnt care less about 'trade'-marks for navigating public communication-space? The longer the squabble about rights and names goes on, the more entrenched it makes WIPO's position as the court of last resort. Youve had a glimpse of how it sees its role; is that what you want? Alternatively, in ICANN youve got all the scaffolding necessary to set up an international DB of *trade names and numbers which has at least the earmarks of openness; who are you waiting for to put this on the agenda? IBM? the BoD?? kerry
