[FYI] Arguments for Recalling WIPO RFC3

[Horns@t-online.de (Axel H. Horns)]

http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue4_4/gerck/index.html

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     Arguments for Recalling WIPO RFC3
     By Ed Gerck

     The Internet Domain Name System (DNS) allows a user to 
     associate a name with a resource on the
     Internet, such as a machine, an electronic mail address, or a Web
     site. Trademarks exist in another, more traditional, name system
     which permits a customer to associate a product name with an
     enterprise, the mark owner. This paper argues that DNS names are
     intersubjective and never objective, while trademarks are
     objective and may also be intersubjective. These basic
     differences between a DNS name and a trademark name were however
     fully ignored by the World Intellectual Property Organization
     (WIPO) report RFC3, which seeks to regulate worldwide Internet
     domain names in purely objective terms. This paper further
     demonstrates that conflicts between the two naming systems exist
     in the intersubjective arena but are less than 0.04% for a
     typical well-known mark in a period of nine months. These results
     suggest that WIPO's RFC3 is basically flawed in motivation,
     qualification, and method, so that it should be recalled in
     totum. Its application would more probably cause more
     difficulties to Internet users and trademark owners than the few
     confusing cases it may avoid. A solution to these problems may be
     found in digital identity certification or at least origin
     authentication. "Business server certificates" - based on
     cryptographic challenge-response - can concretely define an
     objective business identifier on the Internet and can be used to
     support trademark requirements. Other issues such as
     cybersquatting, anonymity in DNS registration and tracing and
     stopping trademark-infringement sites are also treated in this
     paper.

     [...]

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