browse comments: WIPO RFC-1

WIPO RFC-1
eric@macweb.com
Tue, 14 Jul 1998 20:42:35 -0400

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IMHO, a domain name dispute resolution policy is unnecessary. National and international laws already provide recourse for trademark holders to protect what they feel may be infrigement on their trademarks.

Any dispute resolution policy, regardless of content, will undoubtedly be applied in an arbitrary manner dependant on the parties involved.

History with existing TLD's shows that dispute resolution policies are all too often abused by powerful trademark holders as a means to intimidate existing domain name holders (with few resources) into turning over their domain name even when trademark infrigement has not been established.

Arguably, the courts have not yet even determined that mere ownership of a domain name containing a trademarked text string constitutes infrigement.

The recommendation of WIPO to the future decision-makers on this subject should be that a uniform domain name dispute resolution policy is unnecessary. Domain names with ANY text string should be granted without question to applicants on a first-come, first-served basis. Trademark holders disputing the ownership of a particular domain name should be directed to take legal or other actions as they wish to pursue using existing legal remedies.

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