On 13/7/17 2:16 pm, Winterfeldt, Brian J. wrote:
We completely agree that there is a world of difference between speculative token users versus world famous brand owners.
We also note the numerous challenge procedures already in existence to address mere token use, including trademark cancellation actions at the national level,
1. The incentives are wrong (there is no way that an individual or small business would ever expend thousands to challenge a bogus registration for a words like "hotel"). 2. Maybe the trademark registration is valid, but it's a design mark or a mark that's limited to a particular class of goods or services, in which case a cancellation action would fail. 3. What national level? The TMCH is secret, so apart from searching every trademark registry in the world, how are they to know which trademark to cancel? (And even then, they might come up with several matches, and still won't know which trademark was used in the TMCH.) -- Jeremy Malcolm Senior Global Policy Analyst Electronic Frontier Foundation https://eff.org jmalcolm@eff.org Tel: 415.436.9333 ext 161 :: Defending Your Rights in the Digital World :: Public key: https://www.eff.org/files/2016/11/27/key_jmalcolm.txt PGP fingerprint: 75D2 4C0D 35EA EA2F 8CA8 8F79 4911 EC4A EDDF 1122