Professional Issues in Information Technology

Professional Issues in Information Technology

trade marks (or intellectual property rights more generally) or where such

laws are not effectively enforced will face trade sanctions. It is hoped that this

will stamp out the flagrant piracy that exists at present.

Even where a trade mark is not registered, action can be taken in the civil

courts against products that imitate the appearance or ‘get up’ of an existing

product. This is known as the tort of ‘passing off’. It is, however, usually

better to register the trade mark than to rely on protection under civil law,

because the legal action involved in defending it will be much more straight-

forward.

Trade marks are an effective way of protecting retail package software from

piracy. Given that pirated software can be distributed over the internet with

no physical packaging, it is desirable to display the trade mark prominently

when the software is loaded, as well as displaying it on the packaging.

DOMAIN NAMES

Internet domain names are ultimately managed by the Internet Corporation

for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). ICANN is an internationally

organized, non-profit making corporation. Its main responsibility is ensur-

ing the ‘universal resolvability’ of internet addresses; that is, ensuring that

the same domain name will always lead to the same internet location

wherever it is used from and whatever the circumstances. In practice, ICANN

delegates the responsibility for assigning individual domain names to other

bodies, subject to strict rules.

Domain names were originally meant to be used just as a means of simpli-

fying the process of connecting one computer to another over the internet.

However, because they are easy to remember, they have come to be used as a

way of identifying businesses. Indeed, they are frequently used in advertis-

ing. Conversely, it is not surprising that companies should want to use their

trade marks or their company names as their internet domain names.

The potential for conflict between trade marks and domain names is

inherent in the two systems. Trade marks are registered with public authori-

ties on a national or regional basis. The owner of the trade mark acquires

rights over the use of the trade mark in a specific country or region. Identical

trade marks may be owned by different persons in respect of different

categories of product. Domain names are usually allocated by a non-

governmental organization and are globally unique; they are normally

allocated on a first come, first served basis. This means that if different

companies own identical trade marks for different categories of product or

for different geographical areas, only one of them can have the trade mark as

domain name, and that will be the first to apply.

The inconsistencies between the two different systems of registration has

made it possible for people to register, as their own domain names, trade

marks belonging to other companies. This is sometimes known as cyber

squatting. They then offer to sell these domain names to the owner of the trade

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