About WIPO recomendations

[Dan Parisi <dparisi@garden.net>]

My name is Dan Parisi and I run the whitehouse.com website and have
commented both in public and through email in the past. I do not
understand why you are intersested in giving "rights in gross"
protection to Trademark holders. In the real world there are different
goods and services which use the same trademark. In the example of
"whitehouse"  or "Sun" there are dozens of trademarks for the mark and
several parties who all have rights to the name. From what I understand
any big company or organization can come in and challenge even common
words such as above even though there is no infringement. It seems that
the party who is being challenged can lose in this arbitration board
which you are setting up but will have the right to keep the name only
if they suceed in  a court challenge. This is completely in contrast in
the system in the United States where you are "innocent until proven
guilty" by a court of law. Your system provides that you are "guilty
until proven innocent" by a court once you lose in this arbitration
board. The Fortune 500 and the mutlinationals that want this system have
more than enough money to take people to court so this nonsense that it
is more cost effective is ridiculous. Famous marks are already protected
under U.S. law provided that they are unique. Big Business just want
"Rights in Gross" protction in common words which is presently not
available to them under U.S. law.

Dan Parisi