[gnso-rpm-wg] A Brave New World Without Sunrises or the TMCH

[George Kirikos]

Hi J. Scott,

Trimming the part re: confidentiality of the existing TMCH, to not get
side-tracked:

On Thu, Apr 13, 2017 at 6:51 PM, J. Scott Evans <jsevans at adobe.com> wrote:
> 1.) A party wanting to speculate with a name and wanting to ensure it gets the name files for a trademark registration is a jurisdiction where proving use to obtain registration is not require (96% of the jurisdictions). This party gets such a registration, dummies up some use and registers the trademark in the Clearinghouse; or
> 2.) A trademark owner has taken the decision that it must own its trademark in all new TLDs. While perfectly within the rights of a registrant in the Clearinghouse, this may be seen as overreaching by many parties.
>
> The examples that you and Rebecca and George have mentions (e.g., CLOUD, HOTEL) are dictionary terms. These could be genuine trademarks, but could also be more in the Category 1 above. So it seems to me that we need to come up with reasonable, efficient solutions that will solve these two issues. I don’t think you need to know the top 500 trademarks registered in the TMCH.
>
> ....So, let’s work on the parts where we have clear consensus.

Under my proposal (no sunrise, straight to landrush), there is no TMCH
at all, so those iffy TM registrations in scenario 1 don't provide any
benefit to the 'gamer'. One wouldn't need any TM at all to participate
in the landrush. Thus, scenario 1 gaming is eliminated, since there's
no presentation of any TMs at all to gain access to landrush.

Under scenario 2, that ("legitimate", to separate it from scenario 1)
trademark owner can simply outbid (if need be, if others even desire
the term) the competition in the landrush. I wouldn't call that
"overreaching" to try to do so under that level playing field, the TM
doesn't give them any "bidding advantage" -- they'd have to pay more
than anyone else, using money (instead of being giving "first dibs"
under sunrise). Legitimate registrants without a TM are able to bid
too.

If Apple (the iPhone maker) wanted to outbid every single entity for
Apple.menu, or Apple.recipes, they'd have the right to try. It's
likely a waste of shareholders money, but at least every other good
faith registrant had an equal chance on a level playing field to spend
their money to do the same. I would see absolutely nothing wrong if
they outbid everyone else.

The list of top 500 TM claims terms is useful to get a sense as to
whether people are trying to register terms like Verizon, Google,
Yahoo, etc., or if they're trying to register common terms. So far, it
seems from the evidence that we do have (the top 10), that people are
trying to register common terms. In other words, are the TMCH claims
notices scaring off mostly cybersquatters, or are they scaring off
registrants who want to register common terms that are widely used by
many entities?

Sincerely,

George Kirikos
416-588-0269
http://www.leap.com/