[ALAC] Fwd: Actually ICANN is creating new rights for THOUSANDS of derivations of a big brand TM, not 50 like staff claims in the large print. It is TM+50 derivations of each trademark label in the small print

[Evan Leibovitch]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Robin Gross <robin at ipjustice.org>
Date: 27 March 2013 01:15
Subject: Actually ICANN is creating new rights for THOUSANDS of derivations
of a big brand TM, not 50 like staff claims in the large print. It is TM+50
derivations of each trademark label in the small print
To: NCSG-DISCUSS at listserv.syr.edu


It was revealed today during ICANN's new gtld webinar that ICANN is in fact
creating rights to much more than the TM+50 derivations of that mark in its
trademark clearinghouse.  The fine print of this new right reads closer to
"trademark + 50 derivations of that mark *for each trademark label".*

So for example, for big brand companies like Apple, who will have a
trademark registration in 30 countries for the word IPOD, ICANN will be
assigning each of those separate registrations for the same trademark a new
"trademark label", and *each trademark label* will be allowed to block
registrations of the trademark +50 derivations.

So in the Apple/IPOD example, Apple will be able block registrations for
the TM + 1500 derivations of that mark (30 countries x 50 derivations =
1500).    And ICANN staff confirmed that this is how staff's policy is
designed to work on the webinar today.

So this very practical example shows how half-baked staff's proposal truly
is.  Had the community ever been allowed to develop this proposal, these
little "oopsies" could have been avoided.  Of course it isn't an "oopsy"
for the TM lobbyists who created the proposal - its a gigantic windfall of
rights that exist no where in law, obtained no community consensus, and
chill the speech of thousands of other lawful uses of a word.

This very important distinction between a trademark and trademark label
shows how big brands will in fact be able to block thousands of unrelated,
lawful expression in the DNS.  But ICANN promised that it won't be creating
new rights with its policies, so I guess we don't have to worry and should
trust them....

Sigh,
Robin

IP JUSTICE
Robin Gross, Executive Director
1192 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA  94117  USA
p: +1-415-553-6261    f: +1-415-462-6451
w: http://www.ipjustice.org     e: robin at ipjustice.org






-- 
Evan Leibovitch
Toronto Canada

Em: evan at telly dot org
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