INTA INTERVIEW
just as they’re getting in sync with managing everything and getting to where they feel really confident, that it’s time to turn over the baton, so that’s an issue.”
Role of trademarks Another area that interests Evans, he says, is the role of trademarks themselves. With the advent of social media and the power that consumers now have, he believes trademarks are merely a legal vehicle—the certificate that defines legal rights—and that “in our roles today, we really need to talk about a brand, and a trademark is really only the legal side of what a brand is. “A brand is an emotional response to the
affinity that consumers have to the goods or services that the brand applies to, and we need to think of ourselves as working with marketing departments, branding departments and advertising agencies, and as being brand managers,” he argues. One of the “hot issues” he discusses is 3D printing, still a fairly
young industry but
which could provide increasing headaches for intellectual property lawyers. Evans believes it will be one of the “seed changes” in trademark law and affect practitioners as profoundly as the commercialisation of the internet. “Here’s why. What happens when somebody
can make a product in their home and they don’t put your trademark on it? Generally how you go aſter counterfeit products is through trademark law because someone has put a similar label on it, but what if they’re taking your configuration and not putting your trademark on it? “For many years, the trademark attorneys
who I’m familiar with have regarded design patents as superfluous unless they’re in certain industries, and trade dress and trade configuration registrations are really murky and difficult,” he says. 3D printing, he adds, is “going to change
that—it’s going to change the way we do design registrations in Europe, design patents in the US, and trade dress registrations. Configuration lawyers are going to see a wholesale change in the next few years”. Moving on to discuss China, where he says
foreign trademark owners have typically been worried about counterfeiting and bad faith registrations, Evans claims that in the last ten years China has done more to reform its system than any other government. “I don’t think they get enough credit for it.
Tey are oſten abused in the press and I think that the government has really taken efforts to get the system in line internationally. “What we
can offer Chinese trademark owners is a wealth of experience dealing with “Te GAC has become exceedingly active—
proactive—in its dealings with the ICANN board,
and I for one am personally very
concerned about that. I think they’re trying to create themselves as a ‘super legislator’, as opposed to an advisory committee. “For example, they’ve said Amazon can’t
have .amazon. Tere is nothing that I’m aware of in 22 years of practice in international law that backs up that position; I think it’s a very emotional reaction from some countries.” In May 2014, ICANN finally denied Amazon
“THEY’VE SAID AMAZON CAN’T HAVE .AMAZON. THERE IS NOTHING
THAT I’M AWARE OF IN 22 YEARS OF PRACTICE IN INTERNATIONAL LAW THAT BACKS UP THAT POSITION.”
its applied-for .amazon generic top-level domain, ten months aſter the GAC urged it to be rejected based on objections from Brazil and Peru, which share the Amazon region. What concerns Evans, he explains, is the
precedent the decision could set. “What happens if next week it’s governments
and totalitarian regimes that don’t want any women on the web any more unless they have their face covered, or they don’t want any content regarding women’s rights or gay rights? “What I’m really concerned about is a process
within a body that has no accountability to the community or to a political body. Tat’s very concerning, not just as trademark owners, but as citizens of the world we should be very concerned. “We should all participate and make sure that
we let ICANN and our own local governments know that any model that creates some form of super legislator is unacceptable,” he adds. Moving back to discussing INTA, which
changed its name from the United States Trademark Association in 1994, Evans says that for a long time the organisation has struggled to be “international”. “We’ve made great strides, but there are a
lot of people outside North America who are restless—they don’t think the strides have been big enough. “But we have a Chinese representative
internationalised brands and moving brands to the international marketplace and what issues they face,” he adds.
The power of the GAC On a less positive note, however, Evans reveals his worries about the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), a group of government members that advises the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), an organisation INTA has worked with for a long time.
46 World Intellectual Property Review May/June 2015
office, we have an office in India, we have an office in Europe and we’re going to be looking at putting offices in other areas, maybe a regional office that handles INTA matters outside of China, and maybe something in Latin America. “Last year we had our annual meeting in
Hong Kong. In November, we’re having our leadership meeting in Panama City, which is the first time we’ve had that meeting outside the US. We’re going there to show a commitment to Latin America, to Panamanian officials, which really shows our commitment to internationalisation,” he says. If one thing seems clear, Evans has a lot of
ideas and goals, but the big question is, will he have time to implement them all? If he keeps waking up at 4am every day, he just might.
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