> While TMs are the big money thing here, there are other rights to
> names, as well. For example, I have a right to use the name
> "Crispin", in certain contexts. There are many others with a
> similar right to the name. It is not possible to prioritize among
> us, so first come first serve is a reasonable allocation strategy.
> But someone who goes out and registers 10,000 common surnames for
> the sole purpose of reselling them has less of a right to the name
> than I do.
You have put your digit smack dab on the public vs commercial
crux: where there is no _market_, FCFS is indeed 'reasonable' as
the word is ordinarily used. The existence of a market *creates its
own reason*; that is, someone can then have a marketing reason --
in contemporary lingo, a right --to expect to resell the item.
Whether this derivative reason is less or more of a right than your
fundamental power of reasoning depends on how you feel about the
commercialization of practically everything. Market devotees
declare it is our manifest destiny, and therefore it is more; other
stodgy, slowminded folks see nothing inevitable about any human
affairs ever, and point out that markets are just another artifact
which need not be given any special treatment whatsoever. They
might go so far as to suggest that naming in particular is an
*inalienable fundamental human activity, and that perhaps its time
that commerce was brought under the first clause of the first
amendment -- "Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion" -- in recognition of the fact that the 'laws'
of the market are in fact only dogma, and trademarks only a
priestly transmogrification of perfectly ordinary breads and wines.
kerry, in corpore sancti
