[Tmch-iag] N3, N4 and N5 Comments

[Dana Robinson]

IAG,

Regarding N3 and N4:

The comments by Mr. McElwaine are good.  I also agree with the comments
recently posted by Brian Winterfeldt and Keith Barritt.

Regarding N5:

Issue 1 Applying the Identical Match Rules

Tom Barrett's comments are worth looking at.  Do we have an existing basis
that only allows @ and & to be spelled out?  Other symbols and punctuation
are used by trademark owners as part of their mark, and may wish to spell
those out, rather than omit them or replace them with hyphens.  Can we give
the applicant the choice?

Rule B

It would seem that an applicant should be entitled to choose the language
that it desires for spelling out its special characters.  If the mark
includes &, this is spelled out "a-n-d" in English, and "y" in Spanish.  If
we required a Spanish applicant to use "y" but the mark was actually
otherwise an English word, then it could lead to an odd result for the
applicant.  Thus, it would seem that the applicant should be able to choose
the spelling and then indicate the language of the spelling being selected,
or if the system is intended to be automated so that the applicant cannot
choose the spelling, then all UN languages need to have a drop down so that
if you choose & and then choose "Spanish" you end up with "y" as the
spelling.

Is there a reason that the applicant should not be able to claim multiple
translations of a symbol like &?  Could the owner of fictional trademark X
& Y claim "xyy" as well as "xandy"?

Rule C

Is there a reason that we cannot 1) allow the applicant to choose which
variation(s) they wish to result from their dropped characters; and 2)
allow the applicant to claim more than one variation?  If there is a fee
for each claim, then there is an incentive for the applicant to be
reasonable in the number of variations, and this allows a trademark owner
to adequately cover for the "missing" characters from their trademark with
different dashes or lack thereof.

Issue 2: Registry Character Mappings

It would seem overly complicated to have each registry providing its
mapping to the TMCH, as described under option (b).

Thus, option (a) seems to be the best, and also allows a registry to adopt
mapping rules that might be suited to the intended or native language of
the registry.

Yours,

Dana



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Dana Robinson,
Partner
TechLaw LLP
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