IP: more on Mike Doughney's WIPO Speech]

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 08:33:17 -0800
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
> From: "Robert (Bob) J. Aiken" <raiken () cisco com>
>
>
> Dave
>
> You can forward this to your list if you want.
>
>
> I agree with the issues pointed out by Mike Doughney.  Its actually worse
> than what he has described. What happens when a company in Germany
> challenges your domain name registration? Do you have to travel to Germany?
> What jurisdiction holds?  This is definintely a system where only large
> corporations can play and win since they can afford the tens of thousands of
> dollars for lawyers that many mere mortals on the net cannot afford to bring
> and fight challenges. The small organizations, businesses and individuals
> will have to capitulate to lwayer blackmail from large organizations. I was
> on the US federal Gov's DNS ad hoc working group when it started and I
> brought up this very issue many times. The PTO folks, State, and others on
> the group did not care to hear this. They merely responded that those being
> challenged would need to hire a lawyer.  It should be noted that the vast
> majority of the represetatives on the US Gov's DNS ad hoc working group are
> lawyers, which might explain their bent to solutions that help no one but
> the lawyers (bank accounts that is).  
>
> bob