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by zyx321 1774 days ago
Verifying that an SVG image is 100%identical (with zero room for interpretation) to a picture in a public database (available online free of charge)?

And then clicking 'renew' once per year?

How could you possibly charge less than a thousand dollars for that...
1 comments
LeonM 1774 days ago
No public database with all trademarks exists. And even if it does: who is going to maintain that public database? And how would you be able to trust said database? How will you proof that you really are the legal owner of the logo in that database?

Again, the 'renew' click is not why this is expensive. It's just a cryptographic function that signs a bunch of data, Lets Encrypt has long proven that certificates can be created free-of-charge. However, having a human verifying that everything checks out is the expensive part. Having that human work in an environment, following procedures that passes public audits is expensive. None of the trademark offices is going to do your trademark validations for free. No-one is going to staff a call-centre for free.

You are right about the technical part of creating a certificate being trivially easy, but I believe you truly underestimate the costs of running a CA that is capable of delivering VMCs.

Maybe that some company can do it for less than the current prices, I don't know. Competition will show that eventually. But if you truly think that you can do it for less than the current CAs, then start a CA yourself and start competing.

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zyx321 1773 days ago
You need to be registered with the national patent and trademark office in one of six participating countries. These databases are financed and maintained almost entirely by the brand owners. You as a brand owner need to do your own research to make sure that your logo is original, then you pay to be entered into the database, then you need to continuously audit any new entries into these databases to make sure that they don't infringe on your existing trademark.

So you provide the CA with an trademark ID number that they can look up and they verify that you represent the company that owns the trademark. It's like 10 minutes on top of the existing EV process, but it's more than double the price.

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