Ray, I assume that if Dave (or someone else) set themselves up
as the International Elegant Tophat Fabrication Society, made at
least a perfunctory effect to establish themselves as being in
that business, established a business unit that they called
their "Secretariat", and then advertised the result as the "IETF
Secretariat", things could get dicey. Given the different line
of business, they might even be able to take out a trademark on
"IETF Secretariat". Right?
Yes, and under those circumstances, it wouldn't matter whether we had
a registration or not, since trademarks are topic specific unless you
can persuade a court that your trademark is "famous". That's why
there are live registrations for both the Ford Motor Company, and the
unrelated Ford Gum and Machine Company.
If someone other than us started passing itself as the IETF anything,
trademark registration would be only one bit of the battle.
Although I do note that on the WIPO Madrid Trademark page, we have
registrations in Australia, the EU, Korea, Norway, Russia, and
Singapore, but not in Switzerland, where the ITU is, nor China.
R's,
John