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names and links: cybermarks and cyberpiracy This page looks at questions about trademarks, trading names and domain names. It also considers the dispute about 'deep linking' and framing. Globally, the regime for allocating domain names is inconsistent and confusing.  A major point of contention has been ownership of domains that reflect corporate or brand names, with conflict leading to establishment of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers (ICANN), the non-profit private sector body that assumed responsibility from the US government for four key Internet functions and is characterised by its critics as the unelected government of the Web on behalf of big business.   We'll be providing more information about domain naming, cybersquatting and piracy in the near future.   In the interim the following articles provide different perspectives: Michael Blakeney's 1999 Murdoch E-Law Journal article on Interfacing Trade Marks & Domain Names is a concise analysis by a leading Australian thinker Marketing Your Website: Legal Issues Relating to the Allocation of Internet Domain Names, a 1998 article by Brian Fitzgerald, Leif Gamertsfelder and Tonje Gulliksen in the Uni of NSW Law Journal, is a brief introduction from down under. Dan Burk's 1995 paper Trademarks Along the Infobahn: A First Look at the Emerging Law of Cybermarks, available in the Richmond Journal of Law & Technology, has become a classic. David Loundy's 1997 paper A Primer on Trademark Law and Internet Addresses is also good value, albeit from a US perspective and predating the UDRP.  Kenneth Dueker's Trademark Law Lost in Cyberspace: Trademark Protection for Internet Addresses paper in the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology is less incisive but offers facts and figures (eg 14% of the 'Fortune 500' found that their preferred domain name had been registered by another entity). Sally Abel's Trademark Issues in Cyberspace: The Brave New Frontier paper in the Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review updates discussion in the US immediately prior to last year's contentious Trademark Cyberpiracy Prevention Act.  The constitutionality and general effectiveness of that Act - increasingly criticised as badly drafted and potentially allowing profiteers with deep pockets to ride roughshod over legitimate owners of trademarked names - is being contested in litigation involving Playboy, Yahoo!, the New York Yankees and others.    hyperlinks Intellectual property protection for online business methods and tools such as shopping cars is increasingly contentious, with criticisms that the US Patent & Trademarks Office has lost the plot. We'll be providing pointers to the debate in coming weeks.  In the interim, why not explore the articles by Chris Holt.   Stefan Bechtold's Link Controversy Page (LCP) is a rich resource if you are interested in the debate about deep and shallow linking or framing.    next page  (ECMS)