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1

This thread makes me wonder why the city of Boston didn't try to
grab Boston.com. Perhaps they did, but the current holder (a large
daily newspaper owned by none other than the NY Times) has deep enough
pockets to engage in a lengthy battle.

The original holder of that domain was Au Bon Pain, based in Cambridge:
a croissant and coffee shop.

My $0.02 on the nature of naming: this is just exactly like the 800
toll-free prefix. As soon as 888 opened up, whoever held 800-FLOWERS
then had to reserve 888-FLOWERS. (I recall trying to get a mnemonic
888 number, but gave up after learning that all the good ones were taken
within 60 days.) Now there's 877 and 866. The mnemonic names are, no
doubt, all taken by the same folks who got the 800 prefixes.

People who create a trademark want to have it protected globally. It's
human nature. We *want* a flat namespace. If someone tries to spread it
out across a hierarchy, we instinctively use our resources to *grab* our
piece of the rest of the hierarchical turf.

Therefore any company which creates a broader hierarchy is not motivated
by what's best for Internet users, who are best served by a simple
hierarchy (IBM is IBM is IBM no matter what you append to it). The
company is motivated by collecting a toll from those lawyers representing
companies who seek to grab their piece of the turf.

Corporate entities should be *required* to register in the flat dot-com
namespace, IMHO, and not be *allowed* names in any other namespace.

All DNS does is complicate network management. Vadim's position is
extreme, but not too far off the mark. Keep it simple, stupid, should
be ICANN's guiding philosophy on this.

Wonder how to implement this without turning it all over to the bureaucrats
at the US Patent & Trademark Office?

-rich

2

First I'll remind you that there is a world outside of the United
States. Then I'll ask: are you at all serious? You expect to ban
UK companies from registering in .co.uk?

Precisely how would you enforce this ban?

3

richb@pioneer.ci.net writes:

Corporate entities should be *required* to register in the flat dot-com
namespace, IMHO, and not be *allowed* names in any other namespace.

I like the idea of creating a new ".tm" TLD (or something less likely
to conflict with a CCTLD), and requiring anybody who wants trademark
protection to register there; everything else is a free-for-all, as it
pretty much is now. Let them have their little trademark disputes
over there, and let less litigious heads rule in the other TLDs.

-----ScottG.

4

richb@pioneer.ci.net writes:

> Corporate entities should be *required* to register in the flat dot-com
> namespace, IMHO, and not be *allowed* names in any other namespace.

I like the idea of creating a new ".tm" TLD (or something less likely
to conflict with a CCTLD), and requiring anybody who wants trademark
protection to register there; everything else is a free-for-all, as it
pretty much is now. Let them have their little trademark disputes
over there, and let less litigious heads rule in the other TLDs.

How do you propose to enforce this? What authority will be able to
intercede in a trademark lawsuit involving a domain outside .tm, and put a
stop to it?

The namespace is the namespace, and infringment is infringment, whereever it
occurs. If infringment occurs, the damaged party should not be prevented
from seeking relief.

5

I agree. Such a policy would only serve to legitimize trademark
infringement. Also, since multiple entities can, and often do, have
identical trademarks in different business classes, there will still be
contention for even such .tm domains.
  If one considers the structure of name useage, from local assumed names
to registered trademarks by international organizations, the only logical
conclusion is to move everything to the regional domain structure and
totally do away with .com .net .org .edu and even .gov! It would seem to
be the only structure compatible with all scales of naming requirements
and should make domain related trademark issues a bit cleaner.

Chuck

6

Somebody pointed out that ".tm" is the CCTLD for Turkmenistan. I'm
going to act as if it isn't, to simplify the discussion; it can just
as easily be replaced by ".trademark", ".rtm", etc.

I'm also probably obligated to mention that we're not really on-topic
anymore, but I'm enjoying seeing NANOG a bit livelier lately, so I'm
going to carry on anyways. :slight_smile:

"Mike Batchelor" <mikebat@tmcs.net> writes:

> richb@pioneer.ci.net writes:
>
> > Corporate entities should be *required* to register in the flat dot-com
> > namespace, IMHO, and not be *allowed* names in any other namespace.
>
> I like the idea of creating a new ".tm" TLD (or something less likely
> to conflict with a CCTLD), and requiring anybody who wants trademark
> protection to register there; everything else is a free-for-all, as it
> pretty much is now. Let them have their little trademark disputes
> over there, and let less litigious heads rule in the other TLDs.

How do you propose to enforce this?

It could simply be enforced by the UDRP, as it is currently. But UDRP
would not look at trademarks at all outside of the trademarked
namespace. That would let me register "gifford.com" without worrying
about "Gifford's Huge Company, Inc." suing me for trademark
infringement.

What authority will be able to intercede in a trademark lawsuit
involving a domain outside .tm, and put a stop to it?

Nobody; that's the point. If you want a domain with your trademark,
you should be able to get it in ".tm".

The namespace is the namespace, and infringment is infringment, whereever it
occurs. If infringment occurs, the damaged party should not be prevented
from seeking relief.

The problem is ambiguous cases, like the one mentioned above, and the
many others previously discussed on this list. I shouldn't have to
trademark my name to be able to safely use it as a domain, and sites
that want to criticize a trademarked entity should be able to use the
trademarked name as part of their domain name (as Fair Use currently
allows, but the UDRP does not).

I would love a system that stops people from domain squatting, while
allowing people with legitimate domain names that overlap with a
trademark to use them without worrying about them being taken away.
But if such a system isn't possible, I think the above would perhaps
work better than what we have now.

Maybe just making it illegal to sell domains for more than you paid
for them would be a simpler solution. Laws like this currently exist
to make ticket scalping illegal, at least in Michigan. But that still
doesn't solve the hypothetical case of Burger King registering
"mcdonalds.com". Hrm...

-----ScottG.

7

  I agree. Such a policy would only serve to legitimize trademark
infringement. Also, since multiple entities can, and often do, have
identical trademarks in different business classes, there will still be
contention for even such .tm domains.
  If one considers the structure of name useage, from local assumed names
to registered trademarks by international organizations, the only logical
conclusion is to move everything to the regional domain structure and
totally do away with .com .net .org .edu and even .gov! It would seem to
be the only structure compatible with all scales of naming requirements
and should make domain related trademark issues a bit cleaner.

I'm partial to expanding the list of generic TLDs with a large number of
short, meaningless strings, thereby allowing many identical 2nd level
domains to exist while at the same time creating a daunting task for the
all-your-name-are-belong-to-us crowd of squatters, lawyers and marketers.

I suggest the set of A0, A1, A2 ... Z7, Z8, Z9 ... 0A, 1A, 2A ... 7Z, 8Z,
9Z. This assumes that the ISO will never issue a country code containing a
digit - I don't know if that is the case.

When registering a 2nd level domain, you wouldn't get to pick the top
level - the registry would pick one at random for you. This would give us
520 gTLDs. Expand it to one letter and two digits for 5200. Some
combinations of A-F and 0-9 would need to be excluded in order to avoid TLDs
that are hex numerals, which might confuse some resolver libraries. Only
purpose-specific top levels like .museum would be represented by meaningful
strings. The legacy gTLDs should be deprecated and eventually retired. The
ccTLDs would remain the responsibility of their associated sovereignty, and
could be regional or generic in nature, however the ccTLD authority wishes
to run their registry.

In a nutshell, that's Mike Batchelor's Recipe for Enduring Happiness,
Prosperity and Harmony for the 21st century.

8

How do you propose to enforce this? What authority will be able to
intercede in a trademark lawsuit involving a domain outside .tm, and put a
stop to it?

The namespace is the namespace, and infringment is infringment, whereever

it

occurs. If infringment occurs, the damaged party should not be prevented
from seeking relief.

    The problem is not infringement. Obviously, if there's actual trademark
infringement, it should be dealt with no matter what domain it occurs in.
The problem is the exceptional protections that go way beyond traditional
infringement/dilution/deception/confusion that are being granted to domain
names in some TLDs.

    If you look at most domain disputes that have resulted in a domain being
transferred, you will not see any actual confusion, deception, trademark
dilution, or actual trademark infringement. What you will see is exceptional
protection that goes way beyond what any court of law would give to an
actual trademark.

    One can argue that these exceptional protections are justified because
of the special nature of some TLDs. So the logical thing to do, if you don't
like the exceptional protections, is to change the nature of the TLDs. That
is why suggestions to change the meaning of .com or add new
trademark-oriented TLDs _are_ on target.

    DS

9

Charles Scott <cscott@gaslightmedia.com> writes:

  If one considers the structure of name useage, from local assumed names
to registered trademarks by international organizations, the only logical
conclusion is to move everything to the regional domain structure and
totally do away with .com .net .org .edu and even .gov! It would seem to
be the only structure compatible with all scales of naming requirements
and should make domain related trademark issues a bit cleaner.

That doesn't help at all. If I have to know that Apple is located in
Cupertino, CA to find their domain ("apple.cupertino.ci.ca.us"), I
might as well use their IP address. If Joe Apple lives in Cupertino
too, who has a better claim to this domain, Apple Computers or Joe
Apple? If Apple Records has "apple.newyork.ci.ny.us" and moves to
Cupertino, they have to completely change their domain name, and the
obvious new name conflicts with Apple Computers.

Geographical naming only makes sense for things that are
geographically arranged and never or very rarely move. National or
multi-national companies are not geographical in nature, and sometimes
move. People are not geographical in nature, and sometimes move.
Information is not at all geographical in nature and is in constant
motion. I don't think this scheme works well for much besides
landmarks. :slight_smile:

-----ScottG.

10

* David Schwartz <davids@webmaster.com> [20010309 13:30]:

    One can argue that these exceptional protections are justified because
of the special nature of some TLDs. So the logical thing to do, if you don't
like the exceptional protections, is to change the nature of the TLDs. That
is why suggestions to change the meaning of .com or add new
trademark-oriented TLDs _are_ on target.

Hence forth, the meaning of the tld '.com' has been changed. It now
stands for "communist". Run! Hide your yourselves from this tld or your
customers will comment on you behind your back, your children will turn
you in, the government will launch DoS attacks on your network, no one
will trust your SSL certs, and no one but Castro will do business with you!

Wow, look at all those .com domains available. :slight_smile:

</no opinion expressed or implied>

-jr

11

Scott:
  Which is why I suggested, but I guess didn't properly verbalize, that
it would make sence to put the entity in the correct part of the domain
structure. An "Apple" would be international, Joe Apple is local, Apple
Towing might be county wide, Apple Bagles might be state wide. Attach them
to the appropriate regional domain and you reduce confusion. Since the
structure is extensible, it could even include business sectors. I can't
see how this would be anything but a better approach. Perhaps search
engines specifically tailored to locate and segregate the various Apples
(domain related--not bringing up every apple pie recepie) would further
clear up the situation.
  Face it, there's going to be other "Apples". Rather than configuring
things so that it's harder to find the right apple and segregate one
legitimate apple from the other, why not have a system that clearly
segregates them. Since trademark law is based on the potential for
confusion, a system that attemps the clear up confusion can only
help. Certainly not what we have now.

Chuck

12

Still broken.

Trademarks are for use within a given business segment - that's why
you can have an Apple Computer and an Apple Records - one is in the
computer business, and one is in the music business. Apple Computer
*did* have to promise Apple Records to never engage in the music business
in order to use the trademark (this became an issue when QuickTime and
other similar technologies threatened to blur the distinction).

You'd need to have a .computer.tm, a .music.tm, a .automobile.tm and so
on for all the categories recognized by the trademark office...