Sunday, June 02, 2002

Welch Allyn vs. Tyco (TYCOS vs. TYCO)
Don't let this happen to you.  This Northern District of New York case doesn't really represent new law but it illustrates that "Creeping Equities" is still a common problem which can befall a strong mark in a narrow field.  Plainitff had used TYCOS on sphygmomanometers and stethoscopes since 1909.  Defendant, one of the world's larger companies, used TYCO as a secondary trading name when it entered the healthcare field several years ago.   Several years ago plaintiff probably would have lost a dilution action, as its reputation was in a specific field.  Now equity bars plaintiff from undoing the resulting reverse confusion.   UPDATE on June 7: In view of the indictment of the CEO of Tyco this week, one wonders if Welch Allyn is experiencing schadenfreude.   11:59:30 PM

Dot Name and State of the Domain
Ben Edelman (a Harvard senior!!) has released another behaviorial report, this time on .name, available at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/edelman/name-restrictions/.  He came up with 6000 names that violated the eligibility rules, such as, well, harvard.university.name and allergy.tylenolallergysinus.name.  GNR, the .name registry, receives approximately $11 for each registration, valid or not.  The State of the Domain Name report released this weekend at www.sotd.info (sic) which estimates that GNR has registered approximately 75,000 names to date.  I suspect that GNR has spent at least $800k to date  (on great give-away bags at the Montevideo reception, for example).  Taking into consideration these 6000 names and then the cyberpiracies (I have a matter against a guy who took about a hundred famous names) and other ineligible names, we are talking about maybe 10-15% of GNR's revenues.  One conclusion is possible: If a registry or registrar were to strictly enforce its own rules, it would put itself out of business. Remember the reason NSI gave for not enforcing the .org charter?  It didn't want to punish the registrants who were telling the truth.  Also, there was the $70 a name. UPDATE - June 7 - GNR has posted a response on www.icannwatch.org.   11:31:53 PM

© Copyright 2004 Martin Schwimmer.