World Intellectual Piracy Organization - WIPO.org.uk

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Excuses Used by Most TM Lawyers to Deny the Solution

A few have admitted the solution, being honourable and honest of course. Out of the others, none have denied the following:

Every registered trademark is distinctive from others or declared invalid - so all can be separated by its uniqueness. This exclusivity consists of Name, Classification and Country. Virtually every word in dictionary, from Alpha to Omega or Aardvark to Zulu, is used for trademarks in the whole English-speaking world. MOST are used MANY times over. Trademarks 'raison d'être' is to identify source. Basic tenet of trademark law is to protect consumers and trademark owners from confusion in the marketplace. Actually, thinking about it, none have denied any of what is said - they just gave these bull* excuses:

It should be remembered at all times - this .reg is in addition to current domain - no restrictions on business.

TOO COMPLICATED:

The telephone is more complicated - can't you manage that? You poor soul, how do you manage in life? Finding peoples name in phone book must be impossible for you. Those hard to remember telephone area codes, I bet you don't phone abroad - it must be herculean task to get the country code. Does your mummy dial for you?

Like stated, this .reg TLD does not stop .com or other TLD. It can be used in addition to a current .com or new domain.

(SUB)CLASSIFICATION NAMES:

These have already been decided. It can be 'fleshed out' to be more descriptive. With directory services - typing 'apple..uk.reg' into address bar (without class) will give list of all uk 'apple' trademarks.

COST TO TRADEMARK:

It is minimal, a few dollars, they used to give domains away. The reason why they cost even as much as they do, is profit margin. Why not one off payment, like driving licence? Or, as trademarks are rarely transferred, pay on change of owner. Indeed, why are we as individual domain holders charged as much as original registration fee, just for them sending automated reminders?

COST TO IMPLEMENT:

So you know that I know of what I speak; In my last job, at one of the largest food manufacturing plants in Europe, amongst other things; my responsibilities included the stand-alone and networked data capture systems (not solely) and the automation of turning this data into information. On one data capture system, I converted software to different operating system.

All trademark records are kept at countries registration office, e.g. US Patent and Trademark Office. It is not difficult for system to be set up to use these records as base data for domain registration. So when a trademark is issued - the equivalent domain is issued at the same time. Each country would control its own .reg registrations.

MULTIPLE COUNTRIES AND/OR CLASSIFICATIONS:

Like multiple entries in yellow pages, give several listings - for countries e.g. apple.computer.US.reg and apple.computer.UK.reg or class e.g. cat.TRACTOR.us.reg and cat.SHOE.us.reg.

DIFFERENT LANGUAGES:

Multiple entries for different languages can be used for the classification e.g. Apple Computers in Canada would be both apple.computer.ca.reg and apple.ordinateur.ca.reg.

UNREGISTERED TRADEMARKS - TM:

® and TM differentiated types of trademarks before, it is obvious that another TLD is needed to do same on Internet (.utm?). As unregistered marks are by locality, an extra field is added for this e.g. name.class.locale.country.utm. Obviously requiring documentary proof.

BIG CORPORATIONS DO NOT WANT IT:

NOW we get nearer the truth. Many people do not want to keep to the speed limit - yet they have to abide by the law. The big bully boys should not be allowed to use their name above all others, should they? You are not stupid, you know it is against 'unfair competition' law for them to use mark to dominate over others. Do others not have right to use these words?

MISCELLANEOUS:

I must have heard every excuse under the sun:

"How can it be a violation of First Amendment, when domain names are akin to telephone numbers for communications?" Sure, just like the passenger jet is akin to the horseless carriage for transport. Point being - it is text used to communicate - they wish to abridge your use of it - duh!

"Domain names are not a traditional public forum for discussion and debate - how can it be speech?" Comunication takes many forms - you could say the same about book titles. Every word is trademarked - if you wrote a book, should the authorities be allowed to prevent you using every word for your book title?

Time marches on - so should the Law. This is our language we are talking about - what right have they to stop us using it for any legal purpose we wish? Corporations have no desire at all to prevent confussion on the Internet - they just wish illegal dominance of it.

Please tell me if you have better argument than the excuses above: excuse@wipo.org.uk