Re: lp:trademark_name field

On 14 Apr 2011, at 11:58, Gavin Brown wrote:

> My understanding of this field is that it does not contain data that  
> is used to validate the applicant's eligibility.

It might or might not provide validation. It depends on the trademark,  
where it's registered and who's doing the validation. In most cases I  
expect the filing number and other registration details would be  
enough. Though there may be examples where the string or logo --  
assuming it can be rendered in Unicode -- will be helpful: Kanji or  
Arabic trademarks for instance.

I'm not sure if this field needs to be added. It would be better to  
ask the people who do trademark validations and find out what they  
have to say about this. I suppose they'd say it was better to have  
this extra info and not need it than the other way round.

FWIW I was on the periphery of the sunrise for .tel. Applicants had to  
submit a canonicalised version of their trademark (ie comparable to  
RFC1123 hostname rules) and the validation agent would ask them for  
more info if/when they felt it was needed. That largely happened for  
incomplete or garbled applications IIRC rather than for trademarks  
which used non-Latin scripts.

> When a trademark clearinghouse is validating an application (for  
> example.foo, say), they will take the trademark number (provided in  
> the <lp:trademark_number> element) and use this to obtain the full  
> trademark information from the trademark authority that has  
> jurisdiction over the locality specified in the  
> <lp:trademark_locality> element. This information will include the  
> trademark name. The clearinghouse will then apply whatever the TLD's  
> policy is for confirming that the trademark matches the domain name  
> being applied for.

IMO it would be wise not to use terms like "clearinghouse" or couple  
this EPP stuff too closely to ICANN's gTLD plans/processes. Although  
that may well be the main focus, it isn't the only game in town: eg  
ccTLD relaunches.

It doesn't follow that the TLD's trademark or sunrise policy can be  
definitive. This may well have to be subservient to the relevant  
trademark authority's rules: eg "if there's a discrepancy between the  
Latin-ised version of a mark and its expression in our local langauge,  
the local text wins".

> The <lp:trademark_name> field is therefore only a hint used to  
> confirm the mark to which the application refers, but doesn't  
> uniquely and solely identify it. It may not even be needed.

That's probably true most of the time. At least for those who are  
validating Latin character names against on-line trademark databases.  
However it may be useful supplementary information when there is  
uncertainty or ambiguity about the trademark. The validation agent may  
well have to ask the applicant for more info in those cases anyway.  
But that would probably be by out-of-band means -- IPR lawyers sending  
faxes or PDFs -- rather than EPP transactions.
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