This and comments such as George's should not be lost. These comments need to be retained and specifically addressed during the UDRP portion of the WG. From: <gnso-rpm-wg-bounces@icann.org> on behalf of Emil <emil@cv.ro> Date: Friday, August 19, 2016 4:30 PM To: George Kirikos <icann@leap.com> Cc: <gnso-rpm-wg@icann.org> Subject: Re: [gnso-rpm-wg] Questionable UDRPs & TM applications
George, often TM registrations are granted on bogus or strange claims. For example Christian Louboutin was granted a TM for red shoes outsole. By this logic BMW could be granted a TM for silver cars.
In the domain world: There is a car rental company called economycarrentals.com. They tried to obtain a TM at European level for "economy car rentals", a super generic term used by thousands of rental agencies. Why? So that they can claim economyrentacar.com and economyrentalcars.com in WIPO - the EMD of their main competitor.
They were refused (now twice) an EM Europe Wide trademark for lack of distinctiveness but went on and tried at country level. A handfull of countries allowed them to register a word (not figurative) trademark on "economy car rentals" a dictionary super generic formulation. Now they will threaten & hussle with a WIPO arbitration all the local TLD owners for those particular countries.
Emil _______________________________________________ gnso-rpm-wg mailing list gnso-rpm-wg@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/gnso-rpm-wg