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[FYI] Coke.CH - Koks oder Cola?
- To: debate@fitug.de
- Subject: [FYI] Coke.CH - Koks oder Cola?
- From: Kristian Köhntopp <kris@koehntopp.de>
- Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 09:16:47 +0100
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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"