“First come, first served, so don’t be late“, wrote Shakespeare in Goal for goalin 1616. “First come, first served” is a common law saying meaning that privileges are abolished, “every one is free to go and grind his grain where he pleases, but the miller is not free to serve the last before the first” (J.-L.-Alexandre Bouthors, Les Proverbes, dictons et maximes du droit rural traditionnel, A. Durand (Paris), 1858, No. 57, p. 120, translated from French). In an intellectual property context: “First come, first served is the only principle on which inventors should be treated” (GGM Hardingham, “Lettre de Grande Bretagne”, La propriété industrielle1892, No. 9, p. 128, translated from French).
The rule actually constitutes one of the pillars (but not the only one) of intellectual property rights. The law ratifies a rule of common sense by giving an exclusive right to the first creator of a work, invention or trademark. Common sense also dictates that exclusive rights are not granted to creations that are devoid of originality (copyright), novelty (patent law) or distinctive character (trademark law).
How about creating a generic top level domain? The issue arises for the alternative (non-DNS) top-level domain (TLD) .WALLET, which is currently the subject of a dispute between Unstoppable Domains (first participant) and Handshake (second participant). The word “wallet”, given its descriptive nature (as it is intended to be used in connection with crypto-financial services), cannot give rise to any trademark rights. The impossibility of assigning an intellectual property right should in principle work in favor of freedom of trade and consequently allow the coexistence of two or more .WALLET TLDs. However, such a situation is not necessarily desirable for operators, holders of intellectual property rights or authorities. It is therefore with some satisfaction that one must welcome a recent announcement from Unstoppable Domains. On October 18, 2022, this company, which has created several alternative extensions, including .COIN and .WALLET, announced that it was abandoning .COIN because it had noticed that a competitor, Emercoin, had previously created a .COIN (unstoppabledomains. com) , 2022-10-18). Thus, Unstoppable Domains imposes on itself the doctrine of first-come, first-served. However, giving up .COIN is not about being chivalrous towards Emercoin. In fact, the value of .WALLET may well exceed that of .COIN immeasurably (iptwins.com, 2022-09-07). The waiver of .COIN is purely strategic. In fact, before the referee as before the opponent (Handshake), Unstoppable Domains cannot support the theory of monopoly (each top-level domain is unique) and at the same time keep the .COIN since an alternative registry (Emercoin) had previously created a .COIN. In other words, by giving up .COIN, Unstoppable Domains is sending a solid message to Handshake and the referee. The bet is risky, but it also tells the value that Unstoppable DomainBlockchain, Domain Names, Competition, First Come First Served, Unstoppable Domains, Handshake, Wallet, Coin, Emercoin, Web 3s estimate .WALLET!
