In all your whinging none of you deal with the point made in both the Phillips and VivendiUniversal cases that someone who does not speak English as their first language may well recognise the mark but not the use of the "sucks" suffix.

That this ratio should be turned on its head in the non-english speaking world isn't credible. I think I can safely say that I also hear the phrase phillips used in any context (Phillips the electronics maker isn't even the only possessor of a 'phillips' trademark) far less often per day than I hear the phrase *sucks used in its pejorative context. This is true even of English media content, the internet, television, et cetera, so how the non-English speaking world would learn the meaning of endless trademarks in advance of learning the common meaning of sucks escapes me.

To me what is important here is at what point does one draw the line between the right of consumers to criticize and the right of companies not to be extorted. I think that varies from case to case, as it should, and while I may disagree with exactly where the line is drawn in some individual cases under the UDRP, it seems to remain a shifting line on a case by case basis to them as well. A couple of other cases are worth mentioning, the various permutations of guinness-sucks domains taken away from John Zuccarini, after he got in trouble over the guinnes.com domain (Mr. Zuccarini is a prolific typosquatter), and the case transferring various wal-mart-sucks domains from Kenneth Harvey who had previously registered walmartcanada.com and then lost it through the UDRP.

A common element in these cases is the presumed intent of the registrants. Even to someone like the undersigned who is opposed to the UDRP, the clear intent in these cases is profit, not criticism. Zuccarini and Harvey are not the best posterkids for free speech in the namespace. Neither is Sallen. -g