>In my opinion the idea being proposed by ADNA and Professor Gerrand to add
two
>new domains being tm.au and pr.au is not wise. The current problem with
>com.au is that business are finding it hard to register their trademarks and
>product names. I don't understand the reason why Melbourne IT will not allow
>this, 

There have always been very strong arguments about the heirachy of the DNS
and it's potential use.

The gTLD has for example picked a swag of seven names that are extremely
generic and hopefully chosen to make the consumer/users life easier to
"find" thing on the Internet by taking stab in the dark name guesses:

telstra.shop
telstra.firm
telstra.web
telstra.info
telstra.arts (not likley??  Sponsor events?)
telstra.whatever

You might be lucky enough to hit at least one - if not all.  Depending on
how Telstra pplies for it's names, how much they pay the 89 registrars and
if they win the lottery process being drawn first for each of the seven
categories.

Historically speak COM means a commercial business entity.  Makes sense to
me.  A product isn't normally a commercial trading entity. If your looking
for "OnRamp" wouldn't it be easier to visit ONRAMP.PR.AU rather than
fishing around guessing other possibilities?

Then the question comes down to is the END user capable of understanding
that ONRAMP is a productr of Telstra and not a company?

Gee most people don't know how company structures work, most don't even
know what a Trade Mark is.  Go ask your average Granny, or person in the
street.

NET of course was suppose to be soley for "NETWORK PROVIDERS", but some
people have convincingly used the argument that it means "COMPANY (on the)
NET" instead.  This is a slag use of the term INTER-NET, which has so
frequently been abreviated to "NET." 

Pretty convincing argument to me.

Now the question arises that if .TM.AU were created woudl it protect the
rights of the Trademark holders.

In Australia the answer is a clear NO.  McDonalds is a registered Trademark
- for (mostly) Hamburgers.  If I want to use it for my Electronics Shop, I
can register McDonalds.com.au and use that.  Why not? 

Same with any trademark in AU.  In the USA the law is a little different.
A trademark encompasses ALL categories. Sort of.

How is TM and PR going to stop people also registering the same name in COM
or NET?  Either as speculators or to protect their name?

Doesn't haveing yet another two SLD's cause the owners of these names and
marks a need to register in ALL FOUR SLD's?  

Or will registering in TM.AU automatically cause a release or reservation
of the name in all other SLD's?

I've not yet seen this discussed.







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