iTLDs

>property laws and jurisprudence (precedents) for deciding similar cases.
>If one party is using a name it should not be using according to another
>party, they can solve it between themselves, in the courts if necessary.
>This *works*. 
>

Well, not exactly and this is especially problematic for iTLDs.
Trademark law is fundamentally national. Therefore there is a 
question of *which* country's courts have jurisdiction over domain 
name conflicts. For some background, see www.itu.int/intreg/dns.html
(see the section on domain names & trademarks)

>Of course it is made complicated by the fact that the Internet
>transcedes locality: which law is applicable, what is the scope of a
>domain name.  In this respect the sysem of country toplevel domains has
>advantages! 
>

true - it does provide some relief since jurisdiction is arguably 
more clear-cut.

>Technically speaking this is all he consequence of the lack of a real
>directory service on the Internet.  If we had that the focus would shift
>to that rather than the names which are not intended to be overloaded
>with so much meaning as they currently are.  Now we do not have that
>(although WEB search engines are quite a ways in that direction). 
>

For a nice analysis that echos this see http://ksgwww.harvard.edu/iip/bradner.html

Bob