> > A.M. Rutkowski wrote: > >Carl, > > > > > >There is no "world's famous mark practice". The US has a vague list of > >eight non-binding factors which is a judge is free to use or ignore as the > > > > > >Very useful, succinct "marks in a nutshell" summary. > > > >Another dimension of this that came up yesterday at the CATO > >gathering, and remains an enigma, is why famous mark owners > >seem focussed singularly on character strings embedded only > >somewhere in the Second Level portion of a host name. > > > >porsche.com or porscheautos.com are apparently a problem. > > > >porsche.autos.com, porsche.va.us, porsche.netmagic.com > >http://www.netmagic.com/posche/ are apparently not problems. > > > >Have you discovered what the underlying analyses or > >tests are here? > > > > > >--tony > > The reasons for this discrepancy are obvious to anyone with any working > knowledge of the Internet. They are twofold: > > 1) Trademark enforcement against DNS names at levels below those assigned > by TLD registries, or against directory names used within Web sites, is a > practical impossibility. The vast majority of names at these levels are > assigned for private use by the holders of the parent domain name, not by > publicly accessible registries. Excuse me???? Tell that to the people who ran afoul of the wrath of Viacom when they served up voyager.mydomain.com, klingon.mydomain.com, picard.mydomain.com, etc. > > 2) In part because of point 1, consumers' beliefs about the ownership of > Web sites and e-mail addresses are typically based on the second-level > domain names (or third-level for registries that do not directly delegate > SLDs), not domain names at lower levels or directory names. The likelihood > of consumer confusion based on these names is consequently too small to > concern most trademark holders. Excuse me again??? Its not up to us to decide about likelyhood of confusion. If some plaintiff feels worried, that's their call. And it's up to the court to agree or disagree with them. Also, considering my response to your point 1, it is obvious to me that the likelyhood is not too small to concern trademark holders. The other issue you fail to consider is that mark holders are not just concerned with a likelyhood of confusion. That's just a test. They are also concerned with losing their mark through failure to vigorously defend it and a few other issues. I fear your comments reflect a drastic oversimplification of the issues. > --------------------------------------------- This message was sent using Travel-Net Web Mail. http://www.travel-net.com/
