[FYI] Coke.CH - Koks oder Cola?

[Kristian Köhntopp <kris@koehntopp.de>]

Is "coke.ch" A Violation of Coca-Cola's (tm)?


http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/03/16/1732210&mode=nocomment

[ News ] Posted by Cliff on 20:17 21st March, 2000
 from the yet-another-big-corp-vs-lil-domain-story dept.
 Confused asks: "I own currently in another country a domain called
 coke.ch which I had registered about two years ago (ch is for the
 suisse country). I thought at the time of registering the site of doing
 a site relating to the affects and some information about helping
 addicted cocaine users since a friend of mine died from it. Right
 now, the Coca-Cola company is wanting that name from me and
 have asked some lawyers in Switzerland to take charge of the case.
 What can I do when I don't think that I did anything wrong? Is there
 a way to fight this? Any suggestions would be helpful and
 appreciated." I can understand Coca-Cola wanting to protect their
 trademark, but is this going too far? (Read More) 

 "The word 'coke' in French refers to the drug cocaine ... and the
 words 'du pepsi' and 'du coca' are used for ordering soda such as
 Coca-Cola over there. So I registered 'coke' thinking that it was OK
 to use since the work coke doesn't refer to the Coca-Cola company
 over in Switzerland." 

 Let's face it folks...the word "coke" is slang. It's been a slang
 representation for both "Coca-Cola" and "cocaine" for as long as I
 can remember. Does a corporation have the right to trademark such
 slang? And if a word is trademarked before its inadvertent use in
 common language, what then? Must we all prefix a "(tm)" after
 using the word coke(tm) even if when we use the word coke(tm) we
 are not referring to what was trademarked, but the slang version? 
 This is yet another case that might call for third-party resolution. As
 near as I can tell, this domain was not registered or used in bad
 faith. Therefore, as I understand it, Coca-Cola shouldn't have any
 rights to the domain. Or have I missed something? 

 Thoughts? 

-- 
Kristian Koehntopp, Knooper Weg 46, 24103 Kiel, +49 170 2231 811
"Du haeltst Dich fest/an Dingen die nichts wert sind/ an Dingen, die Du
gar 
 nicht brauchst/Ich habe vor/Dir etwas besseres zu geben/in meinen
Taschen/
 ist ein besseres Leben." -- Die Antwort, "Durch die Adern meiner Haut"