Re: [Ianaplan] Fwd: [CWG-Stewardship] ICG request concerning IANA trademark and iana.org domain name

["John R Levine" <[e-mail]>]

> But, however, it does seem necessary that the final proposal *require*
> whoever is the IPR owner of the IANA trademark and domain name to
> make them perpetually and freely available for all appropriate use by
> all three communities. (Writing a definition of "appropriate" in this
> context is above my pay grade.) It would be annoying to have to blow the
> bolts over silly restrictions on using "IANA" or "iana.org".

This is a somewhat subtle issue.  Keeping in mind that legal advice from 
Internet mailing lists is usually worth what you paid for it, a trademark 
identifies (roughly but close enough) a provider of goods and services. 
At this point it's appropriate for ICANN to use the IANA trademark because 
they're the ones who provide the IANA service.  When we say things like 
"IANA is requested to update the foo registry" we're not using the 
trademark any more than when someone says "I'm planning to buy an iPhone" 
because we're not providing the services or selling the phone.

The names plan to license the trademark to PTI follows from that, PTI 
would provide the service, so PTI would be using the trademark.

It'd only become a problem if things changed and some or all of the 
services were provided by someone else.  As I've said enough times that 
it's likely getting annoying, if we arrive at that point, the domain name 
and logo on the provider's web site will be the least of our concerns.

Regards,
John Levine, [e-mail], Taughannock Networks, Trumansburg NY
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