----- Original Message ----- > From: "Owen DeLong" <o...@delong.com>
> MacDonald's would likely get title to .macdonalds under the new rules, > right? > > Well... Which MacDonald's? > > 1. The fast food chain > 2. O.C. MacDonald's Plumbing Supply > 3. MacDonald and Sons Paving Systems > 4. MacDonald and Madison Supply Company > 5. etc. > > All of them have legitimate non-conflicting trademarks on the name MacDonald's > (or at least could, I admit I made some of them up). I said when this mess > first started that mapping trademarks to DNS would only lead to dysfunction. > It did. Now the dysfunction is becoming all-encompassing. It will be > interesting to watch the worlds IP lawyers (IP as in Intellectual Property, > not Internet Protocol) > eat their young over these issues for the next several decades. Indeed. It's actually "McDonalds", of course, and the US trademark law system has a provision for "famous" marks. I don't recall what the rules are, but once they've decide your mark is "famous", then it no longer competes only in its own line-of-business category; *no one* can register a new mark in any category using your word. Coca-Cola, Sony, and I think Kodak, are the canonical examples of a famous mark. http://www.quizlaw.com/trademarks/what_is_a_famous_trademark.php Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink j...@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274
