Postal Services just wasted your money objecting to .mail top level domain — United States

USPS ought to stick to delivering mail.

This morning World Intellectual Property Organization posted that the United States Postal Service has objected to the seven applications to run a .mail top level domain.

Really, USPS?

First of all, the type of objection filed (legal rights objection) is designed as a vehicle for trademark holders. Last time I checked the USPS didn’t have a trademark on “mail”.

Here are the criteria for a legal rights objection:

(i) takes unfair advantage of the distinctive character or the reputation of the objector’s registered or unregistered trademark or service mark (“mark”) or IGO name or acronym, or
(ii) unjustifiably impairs the distinctive character or the reputation of the objector’s mark or IGO name or acronym, or
(iii) otherwise creates an impermissible likelihood of confusion between the applied-for gTLD and the objector’s mark or IGO name or acronym.

Good luck with that.

Second, if USPS is going have its reputation damaged so much by .mail, why didn’t it apply itself?

Third, one of the applicants for the domain (1&1) owns the mail.com domain. Perhaps the USPS will argue that mail.com is the reason its business is withering.

Although WIPO hasn’t posted the actual objection yet, it’s pretty easy to follow USPS’ twisted logic. Following all, the USPS, which is bleeding money, submitted a comment on Donuts’ application for .delivery that suggested that Donuts’ was undercapitalized to run the domain.

Oh, the irony.