Hi George,
I think your language is unnecessarily inflammatory & I’d appreciate it if you’d take it down a notch.
You should prolly also stop conflating issues of simple commerce (what we’re doing here) w/ social injustice.
Actually, trademarks do represent a legal bar to use of a name & those who obtain TMs do receive benefits not available to those who do not. That bar exists to protect consumers.
We cannot ignore that TM owners:
- Invest substantial sums in their marks (registration, marketing, defending, maintenance, etc)
- Must protect their TMs or risk having them cancelled
- Are forced to spend significant sums to stop abuse of their TM names when such abuse occurs
It’s just not good policy to force TM owners to corral every horse that gets out of the barn, rather than taking simple steps to keep them from getting out in the first place.
Cyntia King
CEO & Founder
-----Original Message-----
From: gnso-rpm-wg-bounces@icann.org [mailto:gnso-rpm-wg-bounces@icann.org] On Behalf Of George Kirikos
Sent: Friday, August 11, 2017 5:00 PM
To: gnso-rpm-wg <gnso-rpm-wg@icann.org>
Subject: Re: [gnso-rpm-wg] 99%+ reduction in sunrise utilization rate per TLD supports EFF call for elimination of sunrise
Hi Cyntia
On Fri, Aug 11, 2017 at 5:48 PM, Cyntia King <cking@modernip.com> wrote:
> TM owners do get a place at the front of the line - because the’ve paid for it.
There's no legal right to be "at the front of the line" because they've "paid for it". Others would equally be willing to simply pay, if the contention is only decided by money (i.e. auctions), as long as everyone is on the level playing field.
> And those people “at the back of the bus” are not being excluded from anything. Any one of them can go to the front of the line if they also spend the time, money & effort to register their own TM.
That's not how problems of "discrimination" is solved. The "solution"
isn't to "get a TM, because that's what takes you to the front of the line" -- that's how we got the gamed sunrises for "THE", "HOTEL", "HOTELS", and so on. The solution is to stop discrimination entirely (eliminating the sunrise).
It's like suggesting to a non-white person, "you can go to the front of the bus" (in the segregated 1950s America) "by changing the colour of your skin!" The right solution isn't to perpetuate discrimination, but to end it.
Sincerely,
George Kirikos
416-588-0269
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