[gnso-rpm-wg] Action Items, Slides and Notes from the Working Group call held earlier today

Tue Apr 11 12:37:36 UTC 2017

Oops, I forgot to include the "owner of that trademark" in the prior
email. It is:

Name 1-800- FLOWERS.COM, INC.
(811)Applicant nationality code US
Address country US
Address One Old Country Road, Suite 500, Carle Place, New York, 11514, USA

Q.E.D.
Boom goes the dynamite!
Pick your own meme. :-)

Sincerely,

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

On Tue, Apr 11, 2017 at 8:35 AM, George Kirikos <icann at leap.com> wrote:
> A quick followup, TMview shows that 1-800-Flowers.com has a registered
> trademark in Tunisia for the word mark "FLOWERS"
>
> https://www.tmdn.org/tmview/get-detail?st13=TN501998E00002040
>
> Here are the essential fields (not all copied/pasted):
>
> Application numberTN/E/1998/2040
> Application date1998-12-29
> Trade mark officeTunisia - INNORPI
> Registration numberTN/E/1998/2040
> Registration date 1998-12-29
> Trade mark type Word
> Current trade mark status Registered
>
> They have multiple classes of registered goods and services, but the
> English translation of class 31 is incredible:
>
> EN
> (511)Nice class number31
> List of goods and servicesAgricultural, horticultural and forestry
> products and grains not included in other classes, live animals, fresh
> fruits and vegetables, seeds, natural plants and flowers, foodstuffs
> for animals, malt.
>
> In other words, in Tunisia, 1-800-Flowers.com has a trademark for the
> brand "FLOWERS" for the goods flowers!!!!!!
>
> Let's see the TMCH entry for FLOWERS, please.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> George Kirikos
> 416-588-0269
> http://www.leap.com/
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 11, 2017 at 8:18 AM, George Kirikos <icann at leap.com> wrote:
>> Hi folks,
>>
>> I believe I've found a "smoking gun", see below:
>>
>> On Tue, Apr 11, 2017 at 12:37 AM, Nahitchevansky, Georges
>> <ghn at kilpatricktownsend.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> To put it bluntly, there hea been no evidence presented that bona fide brand owners are abusing the TMCH system in order to horde common terms or stiffle free speech. At best, you have a handful of speculators that gamed the system to some extent. This might be a fix or a tweek to the existing regime, but should not be a wholesle questioning of the entire system. Let' move on already.
>>
>> According to the launch schedule for the .DELIVERY TLD at:
>>
>> https://ie.godaddy.com/help/about-delivery-domain-names-12395
>>
>> Sunrise period was from 12/2/14 at 16:00 UTC to 1/31/15 at 16:00 UTC,
>> and EAP (Landrush) didn't begin until 2/4/15 at 16:00 UTC
>>
>> Consider the domain name FLOWERS.DELIVERY, registered to
>> 1-800-FLOWERS.COM Inc., via DomainTools:
>>
>> https://whois.domaintools.com/flowers.delivery
>>
>> Its creation date/time was 2015-02-03T22:14:41Z, which was BEFORE the
>> EAP/Landrush date, which is strong evidence it was registered in the
>> sunrise period. [I'm aware that the date is after the close of
>> sunrise, however, I believe that's because all the sunrise domains
>> were created in a batch after the sunrise period was completed; that
>> way, if there were multiple applications for the same string, they
>> could be auctioned, etc.]
>>
>> Note that Yahoo.delivery was created at the same time (within a few seconds):
>>
>> https://whois.domaintools.com/yahoo.delivery
>>
>> Creation Date: 2015-02-03T22:14:58Z
>>
>> Once again predating EAP/Landrush (I'm confident that's a sunrise
>> registration, as it would be cheaper than paying the Day 1 EAP
>> price!).
>>
>> And it's the same date/time stamp as that of the US Postal Service's
>> registration:
>>
>> https://whois.domaintools.com/usps.delivery
>>
>> Creation Date: 2015-02-03T22:14:26Z
>>
>> which once again, should have been a sunrise registration too.
>>
>> And in case anyone suggests that "maybe someone else gamed the system,
>> and 1-800-Flowers.com bought it from them", the earliest WHOIS history
>> record from DomainTools is dated 2015-02-04 (i.e. the next day) and
>> is:
>>
>> https://research.domaintools.com/research/whois-history/search/?q=flowers.delivery&date=2015-02-04&origin=permalink
>>
>> Domain Name: flowers.delivery
>> Domain ID: 9f91e929ec1c4bc09eaeccd278f2652f-D
>> WHOIS Server: http://www.whois.corporatedomains.com
>> Referral URL: http://www.cscglobal.com
>> Updated Date: 2015-02-03T22:14:41Z
>> Creation Date: 2015-02-03T22:14:41Z
>> Registry Expiry Date: 2016-02-03T22:14:41Z
>> Sponsoring Registrar: Corporation Service Company
>> Sponsoring Registrar IANA ID: 299
>> Domain Status: ok https://www.icann.org/epp#ok
>> Registrant ID: 1800flower
>> Registrant Name: Domain Administrator
>> Registrant Organization: 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, INC.
>> Registrant Street: One Old Country Road, Suite 500
>> Registrant City: Carle Place
>> Registrant State/Province: NY
>> Registrant Postal Code: 11514
>> Registrant Country: US
>> Registrant Phone: +1.5162376000
>> Registrant Phone Ext:
>> Registrant Fax: +1.5162376101
>> Registrant Fax Ext:
>> Registrant Email: domainadmin at 1800flowers.com
>>
>> This is evidence that cannot be ignored, and is likely just the tip of
>> the iceberg.
>>
>> There you have it, a "smoking gun". I can see why some people wanted
>> to "move on", to perhaps prevent us from digging deep to find evidence
>> like this, not by a "handful of speculators", but by a large brand
>> owner like 1-800-FLOWERS.com seeking to gain priority access to a
>> common dictionary word that is descriptive to its entire industry.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> George Kirikos
>> 416-588-0269
>> http://www.leap.com/