Re:"Coke" IS a Trademark too (Score 1)

And "Coke" was *first* registered in 1945: Word Mark COKE Owner Name (REGISTRANT) COCA-COLA COMPANY, THE Owner Address P.O. DRAWER 1734 ATLANTA GEORGIA 30301 CORPORATION DELAWARE Serial Number 71-468708 Registration Number 0415755 Filing Date 03/27/1944 Registration Date 08/14/1945 It's been pointed out that "Coke" is owned by Coca-Cola pretty much everywhere, so they can always defend it, no matter where. The interesting point is about the use of trademark in the same industry. The problem with domain names is that it's an extremely scarce resource -- there's only one coke.[whatever] in each hierarchy. That pretty much kills off that one aspect of patent law. So the question is, is trademark law the governing law in this situation? Who knows. Trademark law is very locally geographical in nature -- and there are no local geographic bounds on the Internet. Very very interesting stuff... BTW, "Coke" is not part of the English language like Xerox or Band-Aid. Those refer to the generic product of a copy/copier or a self-adhesive bandage. No one would use the word "Coke" to refer to "cola". Otherwise, "Coke" and Pepsi or your supermarket brand cola would be interchangeable to people. It's clearly not.