IP: "Sex, Lies and TLDs"

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

"Sex, Lies and TLDs"
MSNBC.com (08/08/01); Meeks, Brock N.
After trademark holders are finished exploiting pre-registration loopholes 
to claim attractive new TLD domain names that they have no trademark rights 
to, those awaiting general registration will find nothing left, argues 
Brock N. Meeks of MSNBC, and a columnist for Communications of the ACM. In 
the .info space, almost all generic .info names have been claimed already, 
even though under U.S. law descriptive terms like "dog" cannot be 
trademarked by those in the dog or pet business. However, trademark law 
quirks would allow a nail polish company to trademark the word "dog" for 
one of its brands of nail polish, says trademark attorney Bret Fausett. 
Overall, the sunrise period has given trademark holders a mammoth leg up 
over everyone else. Afilias consultant Michael Palage, who designed the 
.info sunrise period, was at first dismissive of the public's outcry over 
the situation, telling the Associated Press that Afilias' job was not to 
verify the legitimacy of trademark holders. Now Palage has done an 
about-face, saying, "we're going through looking for potential 
non-qualifying data," and pledging to "make sure that the integrity of the 
process is upheld." Palage also has said that Afilias will announce 
remedying measures. In one interesting case, U.S. citizen Pat Norbriga 
registered the domain name clinton.info without having trademark rights to 
it in order to save clinton.info from critics or cybersquatters.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/611321.asp?cpl=1



For archives see: http://www.interesting-people.org/