The defendants in Dell’s domain tasting suit responded last Friday writes John Levine in Circle ID. John comments that their response looks “pretty feeble.”John says “Their main argument is that they’re just the registrar, and deny Dell’s claim that the registrants are fakes made up by the registrar. They also argue that they’re not infringing, they didn’t use the names in question in commerce, they were just acting as helpful search engines, you know, like Google or Yahoo. (The comparison to Google and Yahoo is theirs.)”John’s posting also says the they cite cases to support the argument that registration per se without using the domain doesn’t infringe, which he says is correct, although it appears that all of the domains were pointed at web sites full of ads. They also argue that the domains weren’t identical to Dell’s marks, hence they weren’t counterfeiting the trademarks.John’s posting in full is available from Circle ID at www.circleid.com/posts/712141_defendants_respond_dell_anti_tasting/