TheirNameHere.com
New domains -- including .store -- likely to multiply Internet trademark conflicts
Trademark guru Michael Lindsey, an attorney at Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker, explains that although the WIPO report was obviously pleasing to trademark owners, it does not define what constitutes a famous or well-known trademark, and provides limited protection for lesser-known marks.
Complicating matters further is the international nature of the Internet. Consider the example of country codes.
"For instance," he says, "the country code for the country of Tulavu [a tiny string of islands in the Pacific near New Guinea] is .tv. So what happens when you have ABC.tv?"
Lindsey ran into a high-end Swedish mattress maker named Tempur-pedic. But when customers misspelled the name and typed in "Temper-pedic," they found a mattress store, one in the United States.
"Who has the ultimate authority on this?" says Lindsey. "Nobody knows.
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