On Jun 17, 2011, at 8:39 PM, Jay Ashworth wrote: > ----- 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. >
While that is true, there are several McDonalds registered in various spaces that actually predate even the existance of Mr. Crok's famous burger joints. > Coca-Cola, Sony, and I think Kodak, are the canonical examples of a > famous mark. > Let us not also forget the over-extension of that situation, as applied to Jell-O where there are now very bizarre rules about who can and can't refer to just any gelatine dessert as Jell-O. Owen
