[gtld-council] Regarding non-commercial interests in the gTLD market

[Mawaki Chango]

Thanks Lori. I think it makes sense that we need to strike some
balance in the debate trademark v. free speech, and highly and
globally recognizable trademarks may need to be acknowledge in
order to protect consumers. For some reasons, I'd tend to think
that most of those trademarks are proper or invented names
(e.g., Coca-cola, Nike (unless it means something in English I
don't knoe?), Google, etc.) In exceptional cases, common names
can reach that level as trademarks, which might be a bit
trickier. [Note: ironically, proper names reaching that level
sometimes become like common names: e.g., Vespa, Frigidaire (in
French for, uh..., fridge), Thermos, etc.] In any case, it'd be
an extreme case of abuse and absurdity when, e.g., a registry
reacts as if they own a gtld string and want to be granted the
translation/transliteration equivalent in other scripts,
arguably for the sake of protecting the consumer.

Mawaki

--- "Schulman, Lori" <LSchulman at marchofdimes.com> wrote:

> Pardon the typos in my posting of this morning.  I am my own
> worst proof
> reader.   Along with my grammar errors, I noticed that I typed
> ISOC
> instead of IOC.  Must have been a Freudian slip.
>
> My long winded point is that we should at least consider that
> there may
> be some trademarks that have such a high degree of global
> recognition
> that it may be in the public's interest to ensure that any
> gTLD's that
> employ those marks are controlled by the rights holder.
> Otherwise, the
> public may be misled.  Consumer protection is in the public
> interest.
>
> Lori Schulman
>
>