Criticism #2: The Interim Report�s recommendations encourage abuse of a legitimate domain name registrants by trademark holders ======================================================== Domain name registrants would be required to sign a legally binding statement that their registration does not violate any intellectual property rights, when many innocent registrants cannot possibly know this. The mandatory submission to jurisdiction and challenge procedure makes it easy and inexpensive to challenge registrations and does nothing to penalize unwarranted challenges. This will encourage trademark holders to blackmail innocent domain name registrants who have legitimately registered a name they want. A small business or individual consumer who registers a domain name for $50 � $100 will, if challenged, be subjected to a risk of losing $2-3000 in arbitration costs. Even if they think they have a good chance of winning, the risk of loss for a small player is too large and most will simply be intimidated into giving up. Reverse domain name hijacking by trademark holders is a common and well-documented problem. The WIPO report, however, refuses to acknowledge this at any point. Criticism #3: The Report fails to accomplish its central mission: Define and defeat cyberpiracy ===================================================== One can sympathize with legitimate trademark holders who have been plagued by cyber-squatters who deliberately register large numbers of trademarked names and attempt to re-sell the registrations. All evidence indicates that a very small number of people account for almost all of this kind of abusive practice (although WIPO�s utterly inadequate attempts at evidence collection add almost nothing to our knowledge of this phenomenon.) The US Government White Paper asked WIPO to find a way to prevent abusive registrations of cyber-squatters. It also asked it to steer clear of trying to resolve character string conflicts on the basis of trademark law. Astoundingly, WIPO considered and explicitly rejected that limit upon its mandate. The report fails to provide a definition of cyber-piracy and it has structured its dispute resolution and challenge procedures to cover any conceivable trademark-based challenge to a domain name registration, instead of coming up with solutions carefully targeted at speculators in trademarked names. __________________________________________________ To receive the digest version instead, send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To SUBSCRIBE forward this message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNSUBSCRIBE, forward this message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Problems/suggestions regarding this list? Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___END____________________________________________
