Re: [ICANN-EU] ... and other candidates

[Christoph <cweber@dialup.nacamar.de>]

Hello,

Andreas Fügner wrote:

> >May _I_ correct a misconception, which might be common:
> >Trademarks and Domains are two different things.
[...]
> I only referred to trademarks, not to domain names,
> and you are absolutely correct.

Of course you did. But that's the point: we were talking about the
problems with trademarks in domain matters. I'm well aware that the
trademark system in and by itself works somewhat ok (*1), but when
it is applied to domain names, it becomes a serious problem.

> > When, exactly, should
> >the barcelona.com owner have objected to the foundation or
> >naming of the Catalan City of Barcelona, do you think ?
> >Enquiring minds want to know....
> 
> My statement must have been unclear. IOW:
> The city of Barcelona did not object to the trademark registration
> of Barcelona.com in 1996. That means, they accepted it.
> Thus, the city had no grounds to claim the domain name.

IIRC, you defended the barcelona.com decision as an example of the 
correct working of the UDRP.
IIRC barcelona.com got forcibly transferred from the original owner
to the city of Barcelona.

This seems to cantradict your statement.

Regards

Christoph Weber-Fahr

(*1) The Trademark system has its own weak points as well. Evidence 
     of this is the increasing effort companies have to put into
     finding 'good' names for new products, the increasing number of
     cases where trademarks are used to suppress legitimate speech 
     about companies (just go searching for Matel cases) and its 
     percieved procedural bias towards the 'big' players. In the long
     run it doesn't fit the globalized economy that much any more.