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Though I don't agree with some of the statements in the opinion, I found it completely persuasive on the relevant points:

• The first registrant's real name was "Lyle Frampton" and not "Peter Frampton" (the court seems to accept that the registrant's full name is "Lyle Peter Frampton" but notes that no proof was actually given)

• The web site showed logos copied from the web site of the music artist Peter Frampton

• The web site contains commercial links to resellers of music and music equipment associated with the "famous music artist" and not the original registrant

• Although the web site does not offer the domain for sale, the web site's text (as quoted in the opinion) reads like a classic "join with me to exploit this famous domain" instead of being a page about the registrant (Mr. Frampton):

  Frampton Enterprises, Inc.
  Entertainment!/Income Opportunities!/Shopping!
  @ WWW.PETERFRAMPTON.COM
  A Monster Business Development Opportunity!
  Unlimited Income Potential!
  "A New Life" You Must See This!
  FRAMPTON4U@AOL.COM
  Please! Send: Your Full Name/Address/ Phone #/ Your Resume in Text Only!
  Then Call (ASAP)
  Mr. Frampton
  (727)584-0395
  For Your Lifetime Career Opportunity Interview!
  Now Hiring for Key Corporate Regional / Filed Manager Positions in USA.
  

This doesn't sound like a close case to me, unless you hide or distort some of the facts as stated in the published opinion.

Some URLs: the WIPO essay match was an activity of the WWA (WIPO World Academy). The winners can be found here. As far as I could see they didn't publish the other submissions.

Some URLs: the WIPO essay match was an activity of the WWA (WIPO World Academy). The winners can be found here. As far as I could see they didn't publish the other submissions.

Some URLs: the WIPO essay match was an activity of the WWA (WIPO World Academy). The winners can be found here. As far as I could see they didn't publish the other submissions.

Have you read the English winner of the WIPO contests?

For me, it was a succinct summary of many of the problems with intellectual property. It would have been more fitting in the counter-essay competition. Basically, the author lists from a personal perspective how harmful all the laws can be and then says "But it's the law so watcha gonna do?" (I'm paraphrasing)

How is that an endorsement of IP?

Am I missing something?

From the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, the international convention defining international copyright, Article 2, defining what is copyrightable :

(8) The protection of this Convention shall not apply to news of the day or to miscellaneous facts having the character of mere items of press information.

It seems like they could not sue somebody for _copyright_ on liking their news pages, could they ?

I found a EPC parser bug in "The First Mover Monopoly" [olswang.com] that might be present in your thinking too (p. 30): "These requirements mean that not all inventions are patentable".

That's because that article, like me, is used to using these words as legal terms of art. Something can be an invention without being patentable (for example, if it's known). Other things cannot be inventions (for example, surgical methods). It's a matter of definition.

According to old hard core theory only the technical contribution is patentable, not the scientific theory, the mathematical method or the computer program.

Absolutely correct, and I think this is still the current EPO practice. But they've split the evaluation up into two separate parts: is it "an invention" (ie not excluded by 52(2)) and second, is the invention obvious? Both are relevant questions when assessing patentability of something, but they're separate questions.

Reducing hard disk access time by adding a cache in RAM is an invention, according to the EPC. It's also extremely obvious, so you still won't get a patent, but that is a different question. Note that this invention nowhere mentions the use or presence of a computer program. It's a technical measure that most likely will be implemented in (OS) software, but that is not relevant to the evaluation.

You can insert "as such" anywhere you want, the meaning will not change.

I didn't insert that. The drafters of the EPC did. And we assume they did that for a reason, namely to lessen the restriction imposed by 52(2) in some fashion. In the first drafts, the "as such" wasn't there at all, but it was put in after objections from particularly the UK (Beresford, p. 19). So, why did they put it in and what does it mean?

And that is why the uninportant 52.3 is not present in Swedish and Danish law.

Actually, Denmark does have it in its patent law:

In particular the following subject-matter or activities as such shall not be regarded as inventions: ... programs for computers
(article 2)

So they simply moved it into the heading of the article corresponding to 52(2).

Swedish patent law doesn't use "as such", but rather says "merely":

The following shall never be regarded as an invention: that which is merely ... a computer program (article 1, second paragraph).

I'm not sure how similar "merely" and "as such" are, but they do seem to indicate the same thing: if what you have is more than just the fact that it's a computer program, then you may well have an invention.

I don't know how much you can take. I don't want you too get angry because I and the others that have signed the petition need your help.

Don't worry about getting me angry. I'm here exactly because I want to discuss these issues. It's also the reason I set up my website with patent information.

To finally answer your question (hopefully): the EPC, according to the latest case law, excludes only computer programs which do not produce a "further technical effect". That is, if it does nothing more than any other computer program would (display things, produce electrical currents, etc), it is not an invention, because then you've claimed exactly a computer program as such.

If the application goes beyond such ordinary computer programs, then you do have an invention. For example, if you realize better control of a steering mechanism with a computer program, then that's a "further technical effect". Maybe the realization is an obvious use of computers, but that is another issue entirely.

I think the important part is: is this a desired interpretation of the EPC, or even, should the EPC have been drafted in this fashion?

I found a EPC parser bug in "The First Mover Monopoly" [olswang.com] that might be present in your thinking too (p. 30): "These requirements mean that not all inventions are patentable".

That's because that article, like me, is used to using these words as legal terms of art. Something can be an invention without being patentable (for example, if it's known). Other things cannot be inventions (for example, surgical methods). It's a matter of definition.

According to old hard core theory only the technical contribution is patentable, not the scientific theory, the mathematical method or the computer program.

Absolutely correct, and I think this is still the current EPO practice. But they've split the evaluation up into two separate parts: is it "an invention" (ie not excluded by 52(2)) and second, is the invention obvious? Both are relevant questions when assessing patentability of something, but they're separate questions.

Reducing hard disk access time by adding a cache in RAM is an invention, according to the EPC. It's also extremely obvious, so you still won't get a patent, but that is a different question. Note that this invention nowhere mentions the use or presence of a computer program. It's a technical measure that most likely will be implemented in (OS) software, but that is not relevant to the evaluation.

You can insert "as such" anywhere you want, the meaning will not change.

I didn't insert that. The drafters of the EPC did. And we assume they did that for a reason, namely to lessen the restriction imposed by 52(2) in some fashion. In the first drafts, the "as such" wasn't there at all, but it was put in after objections from particularly the UK (Beresford, p. 19). So, why did they put it in and what does it mean?

And that is why the uninportant 52.3 is not present in Swedish and Danish law.

Actually, Denmark does have it in its patent law:

In particular the following subject-matter or activities as such shall not be regarded as inventions: ... programs for computers
(article 2)

So they simply moved it into the heading of the article corresponding to 52(2).

Swedish patent law doesn't use "as such", but rather says "merely":

The following shall never be regarded as an invention: that which is merely ... a computer program (article 1, second paragraph).

I'm not sure how similar "merely" and "as such" are, but they do seem to indicate the same thing: if what you have is more than just the fact that it's a computer program, then you may well have an invention.

I don't know how much you can take. I don't want you too get angry because I and the others that have signed the petition need your help.

Don't worry about getting me angry. I'm here exactly because I want to discuss these issues. It's also the reason I set up my website with patent information.

To finally answer your question (hopefully): the EPC, according to the latest case law, excludes only computer programs which do not produce a "further technical effect". That is, if it does nothing more than any other computer program would (display things, produce electrical currents, etc), it is not an invention, because then you've claimed exactly a computer program as such.

If the application goes beyond such ordinary computer programs, then you do have an invention. For example, if you realize better control of a steering mechanism with a computer program, then that's a "further technical effect". Maybe the realization is an obvious use of computers, but that is another issue entirely.

I think the important part is: is this a desired interpretation of the EPC, or even, should the EPC have been drafted in this fashion?

For those of you who can't open MSWord .docs here are the countries signed on:
Argentina, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Denmark, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Luxembourg, Mexico, Monaco, Mongolia, Namibia, Netherlands, Nigeria, Panama, Portugal, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Senegal, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Togo, United Kingdom, United States of America, Uruguay, Venezuela, European Communities (50).Albania, Argentina, Belarus, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Gabon, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Mali, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Saint Lucia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine, United States of America (28).

Regards

True, the GPL is only useful in a special case of information protection. I also realize that, although the WIPO and other institutions (WTO with the TRIPS agreement) are attempting to internationalize certain types of IP protection, filing a US trademark monopoly will not cover the trademark in every country. (Hey, remember when Linux was submitted as a trademark for a detergent by some Swiss company?).

Anyway, I was just saying that it reminded me that if we don't exercise methods that protect the freedom of code, or smileys, or the name of your favorite kernel, avenues are left open for people to pluck things out of the public domain and privatize their use.

I have been communicating with US and UK Government (and lawyers) about these problems for some time now.

The authorities know the solution - restricted TLD for trademarks.

ICANN President Stuart Lynn and Chairman Vint Cerf made admission about restricted top-level domains to Reuters.

"More people I talk to think it's the more likely direction," said Llyn.

I wonder why UN WIPO or US DOC did not tell them - (not).

WIPO took these domains, saying they were "confusingly similar" to the company's actual name.

This is just SPIN and PROPAGANDA - they know the solution.

Virtually every word is trademarked, be it Alpha to Zeta or Aardvark to Zulu, most many times over.

MOST share the same words or initials with MANY others in a different business and/or country.

For example, the World Trade Organization (WTO) shares its initials with six trademarks - in the U.S. alone.

The authorities allow this conflict to continue, for reasons stated on my site and in comments to WIPO.

Domains could be made unique and totally distinctive, as the LAW requires trademarks to be.

The solution was ratified by honest attorneys - including the honourable G. Gervaise Davis III, himself a UN WIPO panellist judge.

Please visit WIPO.org.uk to see it.

Nothing to do with the United Nations Organization - WIPO.org ;-)

Regardless of jurisdiction, he has an untenable case. The First Circuit Court of Appeals didn't rule on the merits of the case, simply ruling that the US courts have jursidiction, something that both US law and ICANN's UDRP agree on.

For background on the case, see this article on slashdot, or these cases on WIPO's site. In a nutshell, he registered domains for two Brazillian soccer teams, Cruizero and Corinthians. He approached Corinthians about selling the domain, they sent him a notice to hand it over. He then put up bible quotes, and claimed that they were stomping on his first amendment and freedom of religion rights, but lost in UDRP proceedings.. It doesn't help his case that the registrant for his domains was "prestige domains (for sale)", nor does it paint a good picture that he registered dowjonesupdate.com and tonimorrison.com, though he handed over both of those without ICANN interceding.

This guy is a domain speculator, pure and simple. He (rightfully) lost two cases to the trademark holders, and he's not happy that he didn't get paid for being first to register the domains. Personally, I'm surprised the low-life found the nickles to rub together to retain a lawyer to put it to the courts.

Regardless of jurisdiction, he has an untenable case. The First Circuit Court of Appeals didn't rule on the merits of the case, simply ruling that the US courts have jursidiction, something that both US law and ICANN's UDRP agree on.

For background on the case, see this article on slashdot, or these cases on WIPO's site. In a nutshell, he registered domains for two Brazillian soccer teams, Cruizero and Corinthians. He approached Corinthians about selling the domain, they sent him a notice to hand it over. He then put up bible quotes, and claimed that they were stomping on his first amendment and freedom of religion rights, but lost in UDRP proceedings.. It doesn't help his case that the registrant for his domains was "prestige domains (for sale)", nor does it paint a good picture that he registered dowjonesupdate.com and tonimorrison.com, though he handed over both of those without ICANN interceding.

This guy is a domain speculator, pure and simple. He (rightfully) lost two cases to the trademark holders, and he's not happy that he didn't get paid for being first to register the domains. Personally, I'm surprised the low-life found the nickles to rub together to retain a lawyer to put it to the courts.

eResolution v. eResolution.com There is nothing in the spirit or substance of American law that could ever justify the expropriation of one person's rightful property in order to transfer ownership to some other person, based on the argument that the original owner had not yet "done anything" with his property other than simply holding it, whereas the other person has intentions and/or plans to put that property to some commercial use.

The Wipo Troll can be found here, and J'raxis is over here. And, just so you know... Wipo is full of Taco-snot. I wouldn't get too close to him. Ew.

Here's your answer. You're in a pickle. I am/was in a situation where known domain name pirate Jung Hochul (with prior arbitration judgements against him... he lost in the clubmed case) registered the domain waxman.com in a very sketchy way with help from someone inside NetSol. (Representing trademark holders waxmancandles.com I negotiated with former owners (company that bought Waxman camera and ceased using the Waxman name). During NetSol's "holding period" after a name expires the domain somehow slipped beyond their control. hmm.) Anyway, Mr. Hochul (no it's not his real name) wanted seven thousand USD cash for it last time we had contact.

So I went the route of a proper dispute, and came upon WIPO Arbitration.

The gist of it is, if you don't want to deal with Lawyers and lawsuits, and you want to get your domain back the "right way" you have to go into arbitration.

Here's the scheudle of fees from WIPO: http://arbiter.wipo.int/arbitration/fees/ If you want your domain back, you'll have to deal with the cost of arbitration. All the arbitration companies that NetSol works with want the same cash outlay. (It's fixed.)

I didn't have the cash to deal with it the right way, and I decided other ways, so that was that.

I hope you have better luck.

Here's your answer. You're in a pickle. I am/was in a situation where known domain name pirate Jung Hochul (with prior arbitration judgements against him... he lost in the clubmed case) registered the domain waxman.com in a very sketchy way with help from someone inside NetSol. (Representing trademark holders waxmancandles.com I negotiated with former owners (company that bought Waxman camera and ceased using the Waxman name). During NetSol's "holding period" after a name expires the domain somehow slipped beyond their control. hmm.) Anyway, Mr. Hochul (no it's not his real name) wanted seven thousand USD cash for it last time we had contact.

So I went the route of a proper dispute, and came upon WIPO Arbitration.

The gist of it is, if you don't want to deal with Lawyers and lawsuits, and you want to get your domain back the "right way" you have to go into arbitration.

Here's the scheudle of fees from WIPO: http://arbiter.wipo.int/arbitration/fees/ If you want your domain back, you'll have to deal with the cost of arbitration. All the arbitration companies that NetSol works with want the same cash outlay. (It's fixed.)

I didn't have the cash to deal with it the right way, and I decided other ways, so that was that.

I hope you have better luck.

Ok, if you check out this comment you'll find out that the domain is owned by a company called Buy This Domain. And that they're listed as being in Armenia, but have an Idaho area code.

Now, I was browsing around google, and I came up with this WIPO doc, dated August 14, 2001.

It deals with a case sort of like the one mentioned here, where the complaintant (sp?) let the domain lapse for some reason, and another company bought it up. Ok, so I can hear you saying "What does this have to do with this case?" Simple, the defendent was Buy This Domain (then using a different street name, but otherwise the address is the same), seems after being given the notice that the domain was going to be disputed, they offered to give it back to the original owner. That's right, they gave it back.

So, although IANAL, I'd say just begin the proper actions against them, and see if they cave again.

How the fuck does this qualify as insightful? Let's look at it again, in instant replay:

"If you let the domain expire, and someone else registered it, I say you're going to have a hard time *taking it back* from its now-rightful owner."

No, he's not going to have a hard time taking it back, because according to ICANN's UDRP, these other people are acting in bad faith-- they are not the "rightful owner" that you mistakenly assumed. The rules are easy to search, and are here: http://www.icann.org/udrp/udrp-rules-24oct99.htm. But I'll quote it for you, since I'm sure no one will actually go read it.

Describe, in accordance with the Policy, the grounds on which the complaint is made including, in particular,

(1) the manner in which the domain name(s) is/are identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the Complainant has rights; and

(2) why the Respondent (domain-name holder) should be considered as having no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name(s) that is/are the subject of the complaint; and

(3) why the domain name(s) should be considered as having been registered and being used in bad faith


So, seems pretty clear-cut here. Gee, you think the porn site's name isn't confusingly similar? You think they have legitimate interests in the name? You think they somehow weren't registering in bad faith?

As long as I'm apparently the only person who bothered to do some research on this first, including the original submitter, why don't I point out the procedures spelled out in detail here. Note that the single largest roadblock for a small non-profit is going to be the $1500 fee. Is the domain name worth $1500 to you? If so, read up, and you'll probably get it after a few forms and a money transfer. If not, use one of the gajillion other names available to you that's easier to remember than kzhszdfwelsdafjsdfzlldfm.org or whatever.

Actually, it's miraculous that it's taken this long for the US to be able to coerce everyone into ratifying it. They were having trouble getting the number of countries they needed, so they started forcing lots of developing countries to ratify it by using bilateral investment treaties. As a result, it looks like the treaty will be activated soon...

The technews server is now back up. However, the WIPO decisions are available in fulltext here (Aspen Grove) and here (Maggi), for those bright enough to do their own analysis.

The technews server is now back up. However, the WIPO decisions are available in fulltext here (Aspen Grove) and here (Maggi), for those bright enough to do their own analysis.

As most of you know, in any dispute over domains it's the money that wins.

Er...not always:

• Sting lost his bid to take over the gamer site, sting.com (WIPO ruling)
• The World Wrestling Federation recently lost a battle with the World Wildlife Fund over wwf.org (British court ruling)

From the decisions I've read, a lot depends on whether the chosen judge Gets It. Here's an example that represents the worst case of a clueless arbiter. It was ruled by Mr. Michael Ophir that bodacious-tatas.com should be transfered to the Tata Group in India.

Here's the rationale, using the standard criteria:
(i) your domain is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the complainant has rights; and
(ii) you have no rights or legitimate interests in respect to the domain name; and
(iii) your domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.

i) TATA exists as a string within the domain name, thus, confusingly similar
ii) If (i), then the TATA Group has a legitimate interest in the domain, therefore the respondent does not
iii) If (ii), then it is used in bad faith. Plus, it's porn!

Judicial bootstrapping! Most judgments aren't that bad, but there are more examples like that (absolutporno.com, et. al.). It seems that porn sites are treated as a lower class.

Many countries are cinsidering DMCA type legislation to bring them into compliance with the WIPO Intelectual Property Treaties. For more on the the legal constructs being cinsidered by the World Intellectual Property Organization, see their whitepaper "Technical Protection Measures: The Intersection of Technology, Law, and Commercial Licenses" (M$ Word or PDF). Take a good look at this stuff. It's important that people fully understand the actions being taken by WIPO and begin to realize that arguing about your rights or my rights isn't the critical issue. The critical issue is that if WIPO has their way, there will be no protection for citizens of any country, from potentially usurous and monopolistic IP practices.

--CTH

and is not part of whatever the hell that international convention on IP is called.

You're probably thinking of the Berne Convention, signed by most nations, that pretty much says the rights of copyright holders must be respected in other signatory nations, to the point that a work produced in one nation, which is violated in a second country, can be protected under the first country's laws. This is quite possible, and has recent precedent. iCraveTV comes to mind; a Canada-based operation, it was first attacked in US court under US law. However, I don't think patents fall under the Berne Convention; the word doesn't even appear in the text.

There are two WIPO treaties that explicity deal with patents; the Paris Convention (aka the Patent Cooperation Treaty) and the Patent Law Treaty of 2000.

It's worth poking through the collection of treaties at WIPO.org to get an idea of what modern intellecutal property law is based on.

and is not part of whatever the hell that international convention on IP is called.

You're probably thinking of the Berne Convention, signed by most nations, that pretty much says the rights of copyright holders must be respected in other signatory nations, to the point that a work produced in one nation, which is violated in a second country, can be protected under the first country's laws. This is quite possible, and has recent precedent. iCraveTV comes to mind; a Canada-based operation, it was first attacked in US court under US law. However, I don't think patents fall under the Berne Convention; the word doesn't even appear in the text.

There are two WIPO treaties that explicity deal with patents; the Paris Convention (aka the Patent Cooperation Treaty) and the Patent Law Treaty of 2000.

It's worth poking through the collection of treaties at WIPO.org to get an idea of what modern intellecutal property law is based on.

and is not part of whatever the hell that international convention on IP is called.

You're probably thinking of the Berne Convention, signed by most nations, that pretty much says the rights of copyright holders must be respected in other signatory nations, to the point that a work produced in one nation, which is violated in a second country, can be protected under the first country's laws. This is quite possible, and has recent precedent. iCraveTV comes to mind; a Canada-based operation, it was first attacked in US court under US law. However, I don't think patents fall under the Berne Convention; the word doesn't even appear in the text.

There are two WIPO treaties that explicity deal with patents; the Paris Convention (aka the Patent Cooperation Treaty) and the Patent Law Treaty of 2000.

It's worth poking through the collection of treaties at WIPO.org to get an idea of what modern intellecutal property law is based on.

and is not part of whatever the hell that international convention on IP is called.

You're probably thinking of the Berne Convention, signed by most nations, that pretty much says the rights of copyright holders must be respected in other signatory nations, to the point that a work produced in one nation, which is violated in a second country, can be protected under the first country's laws. This is quite possible, and has recent precedent. iCraveTV comes to mind; a Canada-based operation, it was first attacked in US court under US law. However, I don't think patents fall under the Berne Convention; the word doesn't even appear in the text.

There are two WIPO treaties that explicity deal with patents; the Paris Convention (aka the Patent Cooperation Treaty) and the Patent Law Treaty of 2000.

It's worth poking through the collection of treaties at WIPO.org to get an idea of what modern intellecutal property law is based on.

the WIPO copyright treaty says:

Contracting Parties shall provide adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies against the circumvention of effective technological measures that are used by authors in connection with the exercise of their rights under this Treaty or the Berne Convention and that restrict acts, in respect of their works, which are not authorized by the authors concerned or permitted by law.

well, that's Article 11, anyway.

note what it doesn't say: it doesn't require countries to prosecute people who create programs which could be used to circumvent copyright. it only requires "effective measures." that's pretty loose talk. there's no way it requires signatories to go as far as the DMCA.

sigh. I wish Manley was still Industry Minister. we wouldn't be having this nonsense with him around.

Most of the current problems are due to the authorities perverted and twisted sense of protectionism towards big business trademarks.

What makes it bad - they know how solve this trademark and domain name problem.

The solution has been ratified by honest attorneys - even the honourable G. Gervaise Davis III, United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization panellist judge.

There is only one conclusion that could be drawn, for it not being used.

By not using solution, trademarks have priority, this stops free speech.

Fact: domain names were not designed to be trademarks - ask Paul Mockapetris, creator of Domain Name System. He was asked, "What do you wish you had invented?" - His reply, "A directory system for the Internet that wouldn't be controlled by the politicians, lawyers and bureaucrats."

Nor can they be used as such - reason: Most trademarks share same or similar name with many others e.g. Caterpillar tractors claimed 'cat' is 'their' trademark on the Internet - even though there are 1746 'cat' trademarks - IN THE U.S. ALONE. Conflict is IMPOSSIBLE to avoid.

They ALL legally have to protect their 'cat' trademark. For only one business to use, gives it dominant position over all the others. This is against 'unfair competition' laws.

What about free speech rights? The 'cat' was on this earth long before these tractors.

I thought the US Government were pretty hot on that - something you call the First Amendment, I believe.

The only logical conclussion that I can come to is - they want it that way. Amongst many other things, the legal profession get rich and corporations can abuse their trademark powers.

Please visit wipo.org.uk - for the easy solution.

WIPO.org.uk comments to World Intellectual Property Organization .

Most know already the Patent system needs an overhaul, and they recently sought comments on how it should go about the changes [1 2 3] Instead of everyone being so critical of the PTO, maybe some could all get together here, start a thread on it for a day or two, then forward the highest rated submissions to them, instead of just complaining about the same things over and over.

Why doesn't Hemos, Taco, or someone else start something similar to when they ask for questions for some interview. Who wouldn't like to have their name associated with changes to the patenting system. Sure you could bitch and moan about how messed up it is, yet when they asked the public, whose only input is negativity, it's not going to get better any time soon.

My two cents/sense on it all.

Both the crappytire decision and the michaelbloombergsucks decision are listed at domainbattles.com.

The crappy tire decision links from this site:

• CrappyTire.com complaint denied WIPO decision
• CrappyTire decision Newsbytes

The site also has a link to the decision for the current topic:
MichaelBloombergSucks.com complaint denied NAF decision

I have spent hundreds of hours searching the www.patents.ibm.com website. By operating the website IBM generated a lot of goodwill, which is defined as the favor or prestige that a business has acquired beyond the mere value of what it sells. I guess goodwill isn't worth what it used to be.

not exactly what you mean, but consider this case of wal-mart v. walsucks and walmart puerto rico.. this focuses on trademark as it applies to domain registration and not so much the content of the company but i think it's relevant..

It seems clear that no one in the federal government from Congress to the regulatory agencies to the White House -- is in a strong position to oversee or regulate the Net or the increasingly disparate tech nation.

Just like the DMCA, the 'EU-DMCA' is a new copyright law that is required to comply with the WIPO Copyright Treaty and Performances and Phonograms Treaty

The latest available draft of the law (which has the short and wonderful name "Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society"), from 14 September 2000, is available here.

There have been a few changes to the draft, but I unfortunately don't have a complete list available. Official news about the law should be available here and here.

The draft is in many respects very similar to the DMCA, and has many of the same problems. Legal protection of TPMs that deny fair use, is computer code protected speech or illegal tool, legality of encryption research, etc.


Article 5
Exceptions and limitations

1. Temporary acts of reproduction referred to in Article 2, which are transient or incidental, which are an integral and essential part of a technological process whose sole purpose is to enable:
(a) a transmission in a network between third parties by an intermediary or
(b) a lawful use of a work or other subject-matter to be made, and which have no independent economic significance, shall be exempted from the reproduction right provided for in Article 2.

2. Member States may provide for exceptions or limitations to the reproduction right provided for in Article 2 in the following cases:
(a) in respect of reproductions on paper or any similar medium, effected by the use of any kind of photographic technique or by some other process having similar effects, with the exception of sheet music, provided that the rightholders receive fair compensation;
(b) in respect of reproductions on any medium made for the private use of a natural person and for non-commercial ends, on condition that the rightholders receive fair compensation which takes account of the application or non-application of technological measures referred to in Article 6 to the work or subject-matter concerned;
(c) in respect of specific acts of reproduction made by publicly accessible libraries, educational establishments or museums, or by archives, which are not for direct or indirect economic or commercial advantage;
(d) in respect of ephemeral recordings of works made by broadcasting organisations by means of their own facilities and for their own broadcasts; the preservation of these recordings in official archives may, on the ground of their exceptional documentary character, be permitted;
(e) in respect of reproductions of broadcasts made by social institutions pursuing non-commercial purposes, such as hospitals or prisons, on condition that the rightholders receive fair compensation.

3. Member States may provide for exceptions or limitations to the rights provided for in Articles 2
and 3 in the following cases:
(a) use for the sole purpose of illustration for teaching or scientific research, as long as, whenever possible, the source, including the author's name, is indicated and to the extent justified by the non-commercial purpose to be achieved;
(b) uses, for the benefit of people with a disability, which are directly related to the disability and of a non-commercial nature, to the extent required by the specific disability;
(c) reproduction by the press, communication to the public or making available of published articles on current economic, political or religious topics or of broadcast works or other subject-matter of the same character, in cases where such use is not expressly reserved, and as long as the source, including the author's name, is indicated, or use of works or other subject-matter in connection with the reporting of current events, to the extent justified by the informatory purpose and as long as, whenever possible the source, including the author's name, is indicated;
(d) quotations for purposes such as criticism or review, provided that they relate to a work or other subject-matter which has already been lawfully made available to the public, that, whenever possible, the source, including the author's name, is indicated, and that their use is in accordance with fair practice, and to the extent required by the specific purpose;
(e) use for the purposes of public security or to ensure the proper performance or reporting of administrative, parliamentary or judicial proceedings;
(f) use of political speeches as well as extracts of public lectures or similar works or subject-matter to the extent justified by the informatory purpose and provided that, whenever possible, the source, including the author's name, is indicated;
(g) use during religious celebrations or official celebrations organised by a public authority;
(h) use of works, such as works of architecture or sculpture, made to be located permanently in public places;
(i) incidental inclusion of a work or other subject-matter in other material;
(j) use for the purpose of advertising the public exhibition or sale of artistic works, to the extent necessary to promote the event;
(k) use for the purpose of caricature, parody or pastiche;
(l) use in connection with the demonstration or repair of equipment;
(m) use of an artistic work in the form of a building or a drawing or plan of a building for the purposes of reconstructing the building;
(n) use by communication or making available, for the purpose of research or private study, to individual members of the public by dedicated terminals on the premises of establishments referred to in paragraph 2(c) of works and other subject-matter not subject to purchase or licensing terms which are contained in their collections;
(o) use in certain other cases of minor importance where exceptions or limitations already exist under national law, provided that they only concern analogue uses and do not affect the free circulation of goods and services within the Community, without prejudice to the other exceptions and limitations contained in this Article.

4. Where the Member States may provide for an exception or limitation to the right of reproduction pursuant to paragraphs 2 and 3, they may provide similarly for an exception or limitation to the right of distribution as referred to in Article 4 to the extent justified by the purpose of the authorised act of reproduction.

5. The exceptions and limitations provided for in paragraphs 1, 2, 3 and 4 shall only be applied in certain special cases which do not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work or other subject-matter and do not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the rightholder.

Article 6
Obligations as to technological measures

1. Member States shall provide adequate legal protection against the circumvention of any effective technological measures, which the person concerned carries out in the knowledge, or with reasonable grounds to know, that he or she is pursuing that objective.

2. Member States shall provide adequate legal protection against the manufacture, import, distribution, sale, rental, advertisement for sale or rental, or possession for commercial purposes of devices, products or components or the provision of services which:
(a) are promoted, advertised or marketed for the purpose of circumvention of, or
(b) have only a limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent, or
(c) are primarily designed, produced, adapted or performed for the purpose of enabling or facilitating the circumvention of, any effective technological measures.

3. For the purposes of this Directive, the expression "technological measures" means any technology, device or component that, in the normal course of its operation, is designed to prevent or restrict acts, in respect of works or other subject-matter, which are not authorised by the rightholder of any copyright or any right related to copyright as provided for by law or the sui generis right provided for in Chapter III of Directive 96/9/EC. Technological measures shall be deemed "effective" where the use of a protected work or other subject-matter is controlled by the rightholders through application of an access control or protection process, such as encryption, scrambling or other transformation of the work or other subject-matter or a copy control mechanism, which achieves the protection objective.

4. Notwithstanding the legal protection provided for in paragraph 1, in the absence of voluntary measures taken by rightholders, including agreements between rightholders and other parties concerned, Member States shall take appropriate measures to ensure that rightholders make available to the beneficiary of an exception or limitation provided for in national law in accordance with Article 5(2)(a), (2)(c), (2)(d), (2)(e), (3)(a), (3)(b) or (3)(e) the means of benefiting from that exception or limitation, to the extent necessary to benefit from that exception or limitation and where that beneficiary has legal access to the protected work or subject-matter concerned.

A Member State may also take such measures in respect of a beneficiary of an exception or limitation provided for in accordance with Article 5(2)(b), unless reproduction for private use has already been made possible by rightholders to the extent necessary to benefit from the exception or limitation concerned and in accordance with the provisions of Article 5(2)(b) and (5), without preventing rightholders from adopting adequate measures regarding the number of reproductions in accordance with these provisions.

The technological measures applied voluntarily by rightholders, including those applied in implementation of voluntary agreements, and technological measures applied in implementation of the measures taken by Member States, shall enjoy the legal protection provided for in paragraph 1.

The provisions of the first and second subparagraphs shall not apply to works or other subject-matter made available to the public on agreed contractual terms in such a way that members of the public may access them from a place and at a time individually chosen by them.

When this Article is applied in the context of Directives 92/100/EEC and 96/9/EC, this paragraph shall apply mutatis mutandis.

Just like the DMCA, the 'EU-DMCA' is a new copyright law that is required to comply with the WIPO Copyright Treaty and Performances and Phonograms Treaty

The latest available draft of the law (which has the short and wonderful name "Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society"), from 14 September 2000, is available here.

There have been a few changes to the draft, but I unfortunately don't have a complete list available. Official news about the law should be available here and here.

The draft is in many respects very similar to the DMCA, and has many of the same problems. Legal protection of TPMs that deny fair use, is computer code protected speech or illegal tool, legality of encryption research, etc.


Article 5
Exceptions and limitations

1. Temporary acts of reproduction referred to in Article 2, which are transient or incidental, which are an integral and essential part of a technological process whose sole purpose is to enable:
(a) a transmission in a network between third parties by an intermediary or
(b) a lawful use of a work or other subject-matter to be made, and which have no independent economic significance, shall be exempted from the reproduction right provided for in Article 2.

2. Member States may provide for exceptions or limitations to the reproduction right provided for in Article 2 in the following cases:
(a) in respect of reproductions on paper or any similar medium, effected by the use of any kind of photographic technique or by some other process having similar effects, with the exception of sheet music, provided that the rightholders receive fair compensation;
(b) in respect of reproductions on any medium made for the private use of a natural person and for non-commercial ends, on condition that the rightholders receive fair compensation which takes account of the application or non-application of technological measures referred to in Article 6 to the work or subject-matter concerned;
(c) in respect of specific acts of reproduction made by publicly accessible libraries, educational establishments or museums, or by archives, which are not for direct or indirect economic or commercial advantage;
(d) in respect of ephemeral recordings of works made by broadcasting organisations by means of their own facilities and for their own broadcasts; the preservation of these recordings in official archives may, on the ground of their exceptional documentary character, be permitted;
(e) in respect of reproductions of broadcasts made by social institutions pursuing non-commercial purposes, such as hospitals or prisons, on condition that the rightholders receive fair compensation.

3. Member States may provide for exceptions or limitations to the rights provided for in Articles 2
and 3 in the following cases:
(a) use for the sole purpose of illustration for teaching or scientific research, as long as, whenever possible, the source, including the author's name, is indicated and to the extent justified by the non-commercial purpose to be achieved;
(b) uses, for the benefit of people with a disability, which are directly related to the disability and of a non-commercial nature, to the extent required by the specific disability;
(c) reproduction by the press, communication to the public or making available of published articles on current economic, political or religious topics or of broadcast works or other subject-matter of the same character, in cases where such use is not expressly reserved, and as long as the source, including the author's name, is indicated, or use of works or other subject-matter in connection with the reporting of current events, to the extent justified by the informatory purpose and as long as, whenever possible the source, including the author's name, is indicated;
(d) quotations for purposes such as criticism or review, provided that they relate to a work or other subject-matter which has already been lawfully made available to the public, that, whenever possible, the source, including the author's name, is indicated, and that their use is in accordance with fair practice, and to the extent required by the specific purpose;
(e) use for the purposes of public security or to ensure the proper performance or reporting of administrative, parliamentary or judicial proceedings;
(f) use of political speeches as well as extracts of public lectures or similar works or subject-matter to the extent justified by the informatory purpose and provided that, whenever possible, the source, including the author's name, is indicated;
(g) use during religious celebrations or official celebrations organised by a public authority;
(h) use of works, such as works of architecture or sculpture, made to be located permanently in public places;
(i) incidental inclusion of a work or other subject-matter in other material;
(j) use for the purpose of advertising the public exhibition or sale of artistic works, to the extent necessary to promote the event;
(k) use for the purpose of caricature, parody or pastiche;
(l) use in connection with the demonstration or repair of equipment;
(m) use of an artistic work in the form of a building or a drawing or plan of a building for the purposes of reconstructing the building;
(n) use by communication or making available, for the purpose of research or private study, to individual members of the public by dedicated terminals on the premises of establishments referred to in paragraph 2(c) of works and other subject-matter not subject to purchase or licensing terms which are contained in their collections;
(o) use in certain other cases of minor importance where exceptions or limitations already exist under national law, provided that they only concern analogue uses and do not affect the free circulation of goods and services within the Community, without prejudice to the other exceptions and limitations contained in this Article.

4. Where the Member States may provide for an exception or limitation to the right of reproduction pursuant to paragraphs 2 and 3, they may provide similarly for an exception or limitation to the right of distribution as referred to in Article 4 to the extent justified by the purpose of the authorised act of reproduction.

5. The exceptions and limitations provided for in paragraphs 1, 2, 3 and 4 shall only be applied in certain special cases which do not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work or other subject-matter and do not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the rightholder.

Article 6
Obligations as to technological measures

1. Member States shall provide adequate legal protection against the circumvention of any effective technological measures, which the person concerned carries out in the knowledge, or with reasonable grounds to know, that he or she is pursuing that objective.

2. Member States shall provide adequate legal protection against the manufacture, import, distribution, sale, rental, advertisement for sale or rental, or possession for commercial purposes of devices, products or components or the provision of services which:
(a) are promoted, advertised or marketed for the purpose of circumvention of, or
(b) have only a limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent, or
(c) are primarily designed, produced, adapted or performed for the purpose of enabling or facilitating the circumvention of, any effective technological measures.

3. For the purposes of this Directive, the expression "technological measures" means any technology, device or component that, in the normal course of its operation, is designed to prevent or restrict acts, in respect of works or other subject-matter, which are not authorised by the rightholder of any copyright or any right related to copyright as provided for by law or the sui generis right provided for in Chapter III of Directive 96/9/EC. Technological measures shall be deemed "effective" where the use of a protected work or other subject-matter is controlled by the rightholders through application of an access control or protection process, such as encryption, scrambling or other transformation of the work or other subject-matter or a copy control mechanism, which achieves the protection objective.

4. Notwithstanding the legal protection provided for in paragraph 1, in the absence of voluntary measures taken by rightholders, including agreements between rightholders and other parties concerned, Member States shall take appropriate measures to ensure that rightholders make available to the beneficiary of an exception or limitation provided for in national law in accordance with Article 5(2)(a), (2)(c), (2)(d), (2)(e), (3)(a), (3)(b) or (3)(e) the means of benefiting from that exception or limitation, to the extent necessary to benefit from that exception or limitation and where that beneficiary has legal access to the protected work or subject-matter concerned.

A Member State may also take such measures in respect of a beneficiary of an exception or limitation provided for in accordance with Article 5(2)(b), unless reproduction for private use has already been made possible by rightholders to the extent necessary to benefit from the exception or limitation concerned and in accordance with the provisions of Article 5(2)(b) and (5), without preventing rightholders from adopting adequate measures regarding the number of reproductions in accordance with these provisions.

The technological measures applied voluntarily by rightholders, including those applied in implementation of voluntary agreements, and technological measures applied in implementation of the measures taken by Member States, shall enjoy the legal protection provided for in paragraph 1.

The provisions of the first and second subparagraphs shall not apply to works or other subject-matter made available to the public on agreed contractual terms in such a way that members of the public may access them from a place and at a time individually chosen by them.

When this Article is applied in the context of Directives 92/100/EEC and 96/9/EC, this paragraph shall apply mutatis mutandis.

This outcome isn't necessarily breaking with the tradition of WIPO. In the case of Guinness it is stated that: "The Panel does not infer that "-sucks" domain names are immune from scrutiny as being confusingly similar to trademarks to which they are appended. Each case must be considered in light of the facts presented. "

In the Guinness case, the Respondent never responded, and was so unable to present facts affecting the outcome of the decision. Time and again, the panel says, "In the absence of a Response..."

In the Wal-Mart case, again the Respondent never Responed. And he also was attempting to sell the domain name, which constitutes bad faith. This is not the case in the Lockheed decision.

In the Lockheed decision, the Respondent responded in a timely manner and argued in a well-thought out manner.

It's nice to see some people still listen to logic.

This outcome isn't necessarily breaking with the tradition of WIPO. In the case of Guinness it is stated that: "The Panel does not infer that "-sucks" domain names are immune from scrutiny as being confusingly similar to trademarks to which they are appended. Each case must be considered in light of the facts presented. "

In the Guinness case, the Respondent never responded, and was so unable to present facts affecting the outcome of the decision. Time and again, the panel says, "In the absence of a Response..."

In the Wal-Mart case, again the Respondent never Responed. And he also was attempting to sell the domain name, which constitutes bad faith. This is not the case in the Lockheed decision.

In the Lockheed decision, the Respondent responded in a timely manner and argued in a well-thought out manner.

It's nice to see some people still listen to logic.

"This case is an interesting one from the perspective of the history of the Internet and the rumors associated with its creation. Stories have circulated that the inspiration for the Internet was the Owl Post system employed by wizards and students of wizardry in the Wizarding World. The system is often referred to as "The Way of the Wizarding World" (sometimes abbreviated in treatises of magic as "the three w's or "www"), and it is indeed the warp and woof of all wizard-to-wizard communication. In this system, a network of owls is employed to transmit information reliably and quickly. Indeed, some have claimed that the surname of the late, revered Father of ICANN, Jonathan B. Postel, is a Slavic derivation of the Romanian word for Owl Post. Thus, we approach our work in this case with especial seriousness."

Neither Tim Berners-Lee nor any recent Presidential candidate could be reached for comment.

Actually, according to WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), the registrar of the .tv domain is one of several country code domain registrars who have agreed to allow disputes in their domain to be resolved through WIPO's arbitration process using the rules of the ICANN dispute resolution system. So a challenge could be filed that way. Or Fandom, Inc. could go to a real court about it.

Fandom, Inc. is definitely a for-profit company despite any rhetoric it may have given about being a way for "poor oppressed fans" to band together against bullying corporations -- in fact, now they are showing themselves to be a bullying corporation themselves. They sell all sorts of stuff, and now own Creation Conventions (a for-profit con operator, not a non-profit fan-run one).

However, fandom.tv is technically engaging in namespace abuse, given that they are not located in Tuvalu!

I don't know who signed the Berne Convention (i don't have word), but Andorra and Angola appear on the WIPO members list (which contains 175 states) at least. So they at least grant the WIPO to "promote the protection of intellectual property" there (however vague that objective is). I can't puzzle out the legalese but i guess that WIPO members are either part of the Berne Convention or part of the Paris Convention.

The bottom line is that in many respects, it's really ONE WORLD now in the IP business.

Forget the rest of the crud you may have read on this story, the AC has got it right.

Sure there are still differences between industrialised (and non-industrialised) nations, but these are being progressively harmonised out if existence. Historically, of course, the US was always the IP skeptic, as pointed out about they signed the Berne Convention in 1989, over a century after the convention was originally drawn up in Berne (Sep 9, 1886, last revised 1971). Now, however the US seems to be leading the pack. A cynic might believe this is because the US administration has fallen captive to large corporate interests, but this could hardly be the case with a democratically elected government, surely?

While some differences do remain, TRIPS for instance specifically exempts members from enacting the kind of (continental) European 'moral rights' (Berne Conv Art 6bis) discussed above, it is becoming increasingly true that we are being made subject to a global IP regime.

Not that anyone would want to actually answer the original question posted in the article or anything, but WIPO has a number of resources that might help.

There's the WIPO Collection of Laws for International Access (CLEA) [Note the the .INT TLD! Also, be aware that the default search page is Java-enabled, so pick HTML-only, if you aren't]

You might enjoy browsing the "International Patent Data Collections (When it's complete, it hopes to cover the world - not yet complete, however)

In fact, WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) or OMPI (Organization Mondiale Proprietaire Intellectuelle - pardon my French) has recently put a lot of new materials on its website, so it's worth a second visit, even if you thought you were familiar with WIPO offerings

And finally, there's WipoNET which is gradually providing access to all the IP offices in the WIPO member nations.

Not that anyone would want to actually answer the original question posted in the article or anything, but WIPO has a number of resources that might help.

There's the WIPO Collection of Laws for International Access (CLEA) [Note the the .INT TLD! Also, be aware that the default search page is Java-enabled, so pick HTML-only, if you aren't]

You might enjoy browsing the "International Patent Data Collections (When it's complete, it hopes to cover the world - not yet complete, however)

In fact, WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) or OMPI (Organization Mondiale Proprietaire Intellectuelle - pardon my French) has recently put a lot of new materials on its website, so it's worth a second visit, even if you thought you were familiar with WIPO offerings

And finally, there's WipoNET which is gradually providing access to all the IP offices in the WIPO member nations.

Sure you have, their argument is posted right in the link in the original blurb. Here, you can have it again.

"IMHO WIPO should work to discourage the creation of stupid names like those."

You believe that there should be an international body that determines when my 1st Amendment right to ridicule a corproation goes too far? I'm all ears, tell me what guidelines you'd like to see set, what you'd consider acceptable and not. I'm dying to see your reply.

My .02,

Typo sites are odd: I'm cool with most of them (parodies or ones that simply have an ad and a redirector to the real deal) but some really piss me off... like the Slashdot typo sites that frame slashdot with extra banner ads. They do confuse and mislead people: the flame mail in my inbox over the years proves it. I've been called an awful lot of nasty things over a few transposed letters.

On August 25, 2000 the Center sent a Notification of Complaint and Commencement of Administrative Proceedings to the Respondent. Said Notification was sent to the Respondent by Post/Courier, by facsimile and by e-mail. No Response was received by the Center from the Respondent and on September 25, 2000...

And he was right. This was clearly a case of criticism of a corporation, whether he'd gotten around to putting critical content on the domains' website or not. You can't get more fairly critical than "-sucks.com". But they threw the book at him.

And in the decision (read it!) a large part of their reason for taking away his domain was that he had squatted on other domains before. They talked about a lot of those other cases.

In other words, it was something like:

Prosecutor: "Your Honor, we can't find any proof that the defendant actually stole the case of beer. But he admits to being an angry young man, and he was convicted last year of stealing two magazines, a toothbrush and a pit bull."

Judge: "Lock him up!"

I find this just as offensive as their other specious reasons (anger, eyeball-stealing) but didn't get into it in the story because it's a lot of background that would take a while to explain and this was just supposed to be a short story. The long versions are coming sometime in November (I hope) and will go into detail about more cases.

The fundamental issue is, was this guy treated fairly in this case? And it seems clear to me that the answer is no.

Frankly, I can't think of any good reason why any individual should under any circumstances have their "XYZsucks.com" domain taken away and given to corporation XYZ, ever.

Jamie McCarthy

Some people might be interested in reading WIPO's WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center page. I won't go too in depth, because then I'd be reciting their page, but it's worth looking at because it does pertain to Internet Domain Names.