Mark,

There is no such thing as "a trademark".

There is such a thing as "a trademark qualified by a service category".

Given that withinthe trademark world two completely different entities
can quite properly and correctly trade using the same trademarked
name, then please explain to me how BOTH parties can 'protect'
their trademark from each other as well as from other within
a single domain name, whether its .com.au, .tm.au or
.garbage.au.


Attempting to map external name structures into the DNS
won't work. Its a waste of time even trying.

Geoff




At 23:07 1/12/97 EST, mark.hughes§ccamatil.com wrote:
>
>Leni,
>
>>Attendance was roughly 80 or so folks, mostly IP legal
>>professionals from the informal conversations in the foyer.
>Similar sort of attendance at Sydney.
>
>>The question posed by the audience was: "where does one go within
>>the .au space to get a domain name corresponding to a trademark?"
>
>>At the end of the session, Ross Wilson called for a show of hands
>>on the three whiteboard options:
>>1.  .nn.tm.au or .tm.au
>>2.  .pr.au
>>3.  .com.au rules broadened to include trademark holders.
>
>>On 1, no-one (that I saw) raised their hand.
>>On 2, a few people raised their hand.
>>On 3, the vast majority of the audience raised their hand.
>
>>It'd be interesting to compare notes with someone that attended the
>>Sydney session.
>
>I don't have the actual vote counts for the Sydney session, but my
>impression was that they were similar.  However, I have a real
>concern that the attendees did not understand the implication of
>their voting.
>
>The bulk of the attendees, and a fair part of the discussion, was
>from the point of view of protecting intellectual property.  My
>impression from the conversations I had was that many of them
>supported having trademarks in .com.au because their actual intent
>was:
>
>'We want to stop someone else using our Trademark in .com.au',
>
>Of course, .com.au already includes trademarks where they are in use
>as company names - but doesn't include them where they are product
>names.
>
>But a better mechanism to allay fears of people using 'our' product
>trademark in .com.au would be to modify the rules for .com.au so
>that it excluded any trademarks on the AIPO database, unless they
>were a company name that belonged to the applying entity.
>
>There are some implications to the options put to the meeting that I
>don't think were well understood - or even poorly understood :)
>
>For example, there are approximately 5 times as many companies in
>Australia as there are registered trademarks.  So if we make .com.au
>a home for both company names and product trademarks, its very
>likely that a lot of the holders of trademarks will NOT get the name
>they hold the trademark for.
>
>And exactly the same would apply to .pr.au - there are a lot more
>non-trademarked products than trademarked ones - so in a domain that
>combines trademarks with other entities, trademark holders may
>frequently miss out on a domain name that matches their existing
>trademark.
>
>If there was a .tm.au, then only the 5% of trademarks where there is
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>the same trademark in multiple categories would miss out - and all
>the others would have an exact match.
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>The trademark system (and our language) is built on co-existence.
>Kembla Coke and Coal, as well as Coca-Cola Amatil both use the word
>Coke for the black stuff they sell (OK boys and girls, no smart
>comments here :) ).  Both companies have a right to do so.
>McDonalds Plumbing and McDonalds Pharmacy and McDonalds Family
>Restaurants all have the right to use the name McDonalds.
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>I believe the votes represented an attempt at a solution designed to
>stop someone else using 'their' name, without understanding that the
>solution might significantly reduce an entity's chance of actually
>getting the domain name it believed it was entitled to.
>
>Regards, Mark
>
>
> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>*  Message From : HUGHES, MARK          *
>*  Location     : AUSTRALIA-CCA HDQ     *
>*  KOMAIL ID    : N17503  (CCAMCQN1)    *
>*  Date and Time: 12/02/97  15:03:40    *
> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>
>