IP: more on Mike Doughney's WIPO Speech]

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

>
>Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 08:33:17 -0800
>To: farber@cis.upenn.edu
>From: "Robert (Bob) J. Aiken" <raiken@cisco.com>
>
>
>Dave
>
>You can forward this to your list if you want.
>
>
>I agree with the issues pointed out by Mike Doughney.  Its actually worse
>than what he has described. What happens when a company in Germany
>challenges your domain name registration? Do you have to travel to Germany?
>What jurisdiction holds?  This is definintely a system where only large
>corporations can play and win since they can afford the tens of thousands of
>dollars for lawyers that many mere mortals on the net cannot afford to bring
>and fight challenges. The small organizations, businesses and individuals
>will have to capitulate to lwayer blackmail from large organizations. I was
>on the US federal Gov's DNS ad hoc working group when it started and I
>brought up this very issue many times. The PTO folks, State, and others on
>the group did not care to hear this. They merely responded that those being
>challenged would need to hire a lawyer.  It should be noted that the vast
>majority of the represetatives on the US Gov's DNS ad hoc working group are
>lawyers, which might explain their bent to solutions that help no one but
>the lawyers (bank accounts that is).  
>
>bob