Re: Potential wild-card issue outside W3C: legality of deep linki ng

Joseph Reagle wrote,
> Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:
> > A hypertext link is a control with a dereference
> > semantic.
>
> And the policy to determine what is returned after dereferencing is a
> service decision based on such things as the referrer log,
> authentication, and such. The mechanism itself is not the problem, as
> some erringly think. Encouraging the public, or legal community, to
> understand that is a win-win for everyone.

IANAL, but I wonder if it can possibly be as simple and jurisdictional- 
neutral as that.

The mechanism essentially involves the use of URIs, and URIs in many 
cases embed trademarks. Existing law in many parts of the world 
protects trademark holders and regulates the use of trademarks by third 
parties (more than that, it often forces trademark holders to 
vigorously assert their rights on pain of loosing them, cp. 
hoover/Hoover).

So, does the use of a URI as a link qualify as a use of an embedded 
trademarked term? And if it does, does that imply that the trademark 
holder can (or must?) use their trademark rights to restrict the use of 
the URI?

I don't know what the answers to those questions are, but I'm sure that 
they aren't architectural questions, for all that they have technical 
impact.

Cheers,


Miles

Received on Thursday, 29 August 2002 14:36:26 UTC