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[Follow-up trimmed.  Have a nice day.]

In article <CuHsvM.DBB@clarinet.com>, Brad Templeton <brad@clarinet.com> wrote:
>Jens Stark <root@foobar.hanse.de> wrote:
>>What keeps me - a pretty normal net.citizen from sending out a newgroup
>>for market.* ? O.K. - rmgroups by god-knows-who. Netiquette. But LAWS ?
>
>Trademark laws vary from country to country, so I can't speak for where
>you live.  In the USA.
>
>a) Rob announced plans for a market hierarchy where he would sell
>advertising, and worked to get this covered in other media as well.  He
>thus established some awareness of the name, though he has not yet
>created the hierarchy.
>
>b) If you were to create such a group, he could argue that your doing so
>would cause confusion between the groups you created and his, and that
>this would hurt the value of his.  He could thus sue you for
>trademark infringement.
>
>However, this is clouded by the fact that:
>
>a) He has yet to create the groups, and they're a bit overdue
>
>b) He's selling his rights in the name to somebody else
>
>c) The term "market" is arguably a generic term.   Ie. one might even
>use the sentence, "misc.forsale is a market newsgroup."
>
>It would be up to him whether to sue.   A "clari" group on the other hand
>is something that:
>	a) Has a clear commercial value and name recognition
>	b) Has existed for over five years
>	c) Is not a generic term in any sense.
>
>And thus there is a much stronger trademark case for us.

There's one other problem.  If your trademark becomes a "generic term",
you will lose your trademark.  That's why Xerox got so bent out of shape
years ago and started telling people "not every photocopier is a Xerox".

I don't think "market.*" is trademarketable in any sense of the word.

"DNetMarket.*", on the other hand...
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