browse comments: WIPO RFC-3

WIPO RFC-3
mpollack@fcsl.edu
Thu, 18 Mar 1999 11:23:46 -0500

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Comments on World Intellectual Property Organization,
The Management of Internet Names and Addresses:
Intellectual Property Issues
Interim Report (RFC-3)

Malla Pollack
Associate Professor of Law
Florida Coastal School of Law
7555 Beach Blvd.
Jacksonville, Florida 32216
United States of America
904-680-7759
mpollack@fcsl.edu

March 15, 1999

Statement of Interest
My only interest is the development of the Internet for the greatest benefit of humanity. The Internet is more valuable and irreplaceable as an international forum than as one more venue for business.
My interest is entirely non-commercial. I am a professor of law. I do not engage in net commerce. I am not associated with any law firm. I have no clients whose interests I am paid to represent.

Suggestion for Refocus
The first problem is to focus on the nature of the domain name problem. The problem is commonly described as the need for some method of deciding between conflicting claims for exclusive ownership of letter strings. Such conflicts, however, are not required by the structure of the Internet. Most conflicts are created by the assumption that use of a letter string must be or should be exclusive.
I respectfully suggest that WIPO shift its discussion into how to implement sharing of commonly desired letter strings. If two or more entities wish to use, for example, aaa.com, why not insert at that address a hyperlink list of multiple sites sharing that address, a type of Internet decision-tree? Similar domain name sharing has been voluntarily instituted to settle many disputes. Hyperlink decision trees also could suggest alternate spellings. A decision-tree site might also list sites using the same (or similar) letter strings at other gTLDs.
Holders of so-called famous marks would probably oppose sharing what they consider to be their strings. But, unless the word famous has little meaning, such famous marks are too few to warrant organizing the entire Internet around their problems. If a mark holder wished exclusivity, it could (as now) send threatening letters, offer buy outs, or institute litigation. While I have no statistics, I assume that conflict over domain names would lessen considerably if sharing was considered normal.

Statement of Support for Other Comments

I strongly support comments you have already received from other law professors: Michael Fromkin, University of Miami School of Law [fromkin@law.miami.edu];
Pam Samuelson, Univ. of California Berkeley [pam@sims.berkeley.edu];
Jonathan Weinberg, Wayne State University [weinberg@mail.msen.com].
Along with these respected professors, I urge you to consider the interests of non- commercial and small commercial users of the net. Two areas of concern are central: dispute proceedures and privacy.
First, dispute procedures should have publicly available rules that protect ordinary people. The procedures suggested in RFC-3 are biased towards wealthy commercial users. ADR should be mandatory only for large scale stock piling of domain names.
Second, privacy should be protected. As Professor Samuelson suggests, registration information might appropriately be lodged with third parties bound by strict disclosure limitations.

Respectfully submitted,
Malla Pollack

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