Gavin writes: > Ah! but this is California... > > I believe there is a bill in progress here that would extend trademark > protection to domain names and even email addresses! Thus, if your ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > obscure TLA domain name is a trademark of someone else somewhere in the > world, California will allow them to sue you to recover the domain name, > Or if you have an email address that happens to include a trademark, > they will be able to make you give that up too, and also recover damages > (got to be able to pay the Lawyers). > > Crazy, no? No, it's just The American Way :) > > G. > I don't really care about the domain name in my email address (the NetGurus in the company probably think otherwise) but I would get REALLY worried if some one could grab my email name as a trademark - there is a short path from email address to my real name !!!! (as you can see below). BTW, here's a not-so-free idea for you guys in California: start registering names like Bill.Gates Lew.Platt etc as trademarks. When they buy those trademarks from you, send me a royalty of 5% ;-) (I have started a process to register Gavin.Scott, Stan.Sieler, Steve.Cooper, Jeff.Kell as trademarks ...... No no, just kidding !!!!) -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Esko Lahdensivu | Tampere Telephone Company "We make better [log in to unmask] | Tampere, Finland connections" - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Phone : + 358 31 224 4111 ext 4512 Fax : + 358 31 224 4519 Mail : P.O.Box 138, FIN-33101 Tampere, Finland (http://www.tpo.fi/) --------------------------------------------------------------------- The email address, as well as names, phone numbers, words and phrases in this document are all copywright of their respective owners. I own the copywright for my own name in all of its presentation forms, whether upper, lower or mixed case, dammit!