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

Fri Apr 14 17:36:00 UTC 2017

+ 1 and thanks Paul. 
TMs are a sign to a consumer of origin, and trust. I still have basic issues understanding why, having built and developed a brand based on trust, we should be the ones to pay, again, to prevent consumer harm caused by someone else choosing to maximise their financial gain at our expense, without any benefit to consumer welfare. 
Marie

Sent from my iPhone, sorry for typos 

> On 14 Apr 2017, at 19:15, <policy at paulmcgrady.com> <policy at paulmcgrady.com> wrote:
> 
> Thanks George. I appreciate the candor contained in your paragraph:
> 
> "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."
> 
> I will have to say "no thanks" to dismantling the RPMs so that they can be reassembled to ensure that every Sunrise is an auction-based dollar squeeze of brand owners.  I understand certain registries may be unhappy with how few Sunrise registrations trademark owners bought in the first round as many were financially dependent on trademark owners showing up to purchase them (even though we all warned applicants not to count on it). 
> 
> I was secretly hoping that the "dismantle the RPMs" campaign had some free-speech motivation that, after several weeks, had yet to locate its rationale.   Clearly, this is just about money for certain registry operators (its almost always about money...sigh).  One good thing - at least the free speech-ish veneer is gone.
> 
> So, can we please get back to discussing incremental, implementable improvements to the RPMs (if any).
> 
> Best,
> Paul
> 
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: [gnso-rpm-wg] A Brave New World Without Sunrises or the
> TMCH
> From: George Kirikos <icann at leap.com>
> Date: Thu, April 13, 2017 4:20 pm
> To: "gnso-rpm-wg at icann.org" <gnso-rpm-wg at icann.org>
> 
> 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/
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