Bill,
> > Far be it from me to presume knowledge of the law -- but as I
> >understand, there is no international trademark law. USPTO is all
> >very well in the USA, but what about the ROW?
>
> Your reasoned response is appreciated, but my points remain.
> (1) I've previously advocated taking things one at a time, by which
> I mean resolving the situation in a single context first, and using
> that as a model, before trying to tackle the ROW;
Looking over the trail of British, Italian, German, Australian, etc
court verdicts, what do you understand to be the single context of
domain name disputes?
> (2) The inescapable fact remains that even since Paul Revere put
> his mark on his silver, U. S. trademark law has followed a pretty
> straight path, arriving now at the Lanham Act.
Again, I have no argument whatsoever with US law. The Act makes
it clear that conditions of geographical distribution and
merchandise in trade are *essential considerations in determining
the rights and limitations of a mark. Now if it's good enough for
Lanham, its good enough for me; however, the *fact that these
conditions are *not apparently good enough for various others (who
therefore sue for relief as if a name is a name is a name) is the
*problem we now have to address 'together' (if that's not too kissy-
kissy a word ;-).
> The common law
> as to what are or are not legal rights has followed a similar course.
> All of these proposals act as though the groups advocating this or
> that are writing on a clean slate
I recall that the Kennedy and Johnson administrations were also
criticized for `discovering' the problems of poverty, education, urban
renewal, pollution, etc, as if they were completely new. One can of
course conclude that they were clueless newbies, and wish
someone had told them to RTFLegalM, where all these conditions
have ample precedent.
Alternatively, one might grant them the peppercorn of good sense
to recognize that the *problem was to *do something* about those
conditions -- and that treating them *as if* they were new might
mobilize the proverbially apathetic US public to respond.
----------
> With respect to clarity, I'm still trying to figure out what the
> following means:
> >>In paragraph 99 in kind of in the spirit of the document
> >>throughout that essentially freeze court decisions and domain
> >>name trademark conflicts in early 1997.
> I realize that that was a transcript of a speech, with all the dangers
> inherent therein, but the fact remains, who knows what that means?
> (The real issue of course is not clarity but content.)
I had no difficulty with it; let me help you: the document would
freeze the state of law pertaining to IP to the determinations made
as of 1997.
> Quit pretending that this or that cabal of netizens has the authority
> to rewrite the law books on their own, and instead use the existing
> processes of the law: look at the addendum to my NTIA remarks,
> in which an existing mechanism is proposed to be used.
I appreciate that your expertise is in the field of law -- but not
everything therefore must be treated as a legal case. The essential
point I took from her remarks was that *process can suffice -- that
*trying to wring the global-but-unique DN system into the limited
scope of TM law is *creating problems. Because there is no
*appropriate venue, or legislation, or organizational authority or
process in place, existing structures are being used
*inappropriately. That may be the way case law develops, I grant,
but it does seem as if a little rational cogitation could be helpful as
well.
> >I, for one, would like to think that whether it follows Kathy's
> > layout exactly or not, *once any such a system proves itself*...
>
...
> Federal District Court Judges will defer to the wisdom of a bunch
> of unproven intermeddlers in the law? I think not.
Don't you just love it when your protagonist reveals that he didnt
read what was in front of him? (Isnt there a Latin phrase for it?)
> I'll not be consenting to be bound by any of these schemes that
> bypass the law.
When your hammer doesnt do the job, get a bigger hammer.
I'm sure there will always be people ready to sell you one.
kerry
