On Fri, 31 Aug 2001, Mark Hughes wrote:

> IP Australia is a poor 'fit' with the users of the com.au domain namespace.
> 

and

> Treating domain names as primarily an issue for business is wrong; treating
> it as primarily an issue for trademark & patent holders would be an even
> bigger mistake - their interests are not the same as 2,000,000 Australian
> commercial entities.
> 

I'm inclined to agree here that IP Australia and trademark
holders are a small subset of the potential legitimate
holders of .com.au domain names (and given the rather
restrictive regime we have been working under the trademark
issue is relatively well handled.)

Also on the other hand they are far from perfect themselves
with some of the things that slip through.

Want a great example?

My company has been around since 1991 or so (Clarity
Software Pty Ltd) 

In 1998 we registered the clarity.com.au domain.

Clarity International Pty Ltd approached me at some stage
early 1999 with the propersition of "needing" that name as
they were heading for a public listing. Of course we are
quite happy with the domain name and have no desire to give
it up.

In light of this in May 1999 Clarity International applied
for and was subsequently granted the trade mark
"clarity.com.au"!

Did IP Australia bother look at aunic the database and see
if the domain name was registered by someone else? No! Did
they observe that the "word mark" clarity.com.au was
actually a domain name and not capable of distinguishing any
Clarity International product or service as it was
already in use by Clarity Software? No!

And to boot they registered its use as:

"Software-Operational Support System ...."

So they now have a trade mark of our domain name for
a product that presumably makes no sense to put in the
market place as it can't help but cause confusion in the
market place with our legitimate use of our domain name?

Crazy stuff. BTW this was not drawn to my attention until
after the opposition period had elapsed and now its a
major case to get the trademark overruled.

The reason I post this is just a demonstration that things
can and do go wrong as far as AIPO is concerned as well.

regards doug

Doug Robb
Clarity Software Pty Ltd      http://clarity.com.au
GPO Box 763                   Phone: 0403 02 2527
Nedlands 6909                 Fax:   (618) 93867564
Australia                     email: doug§clarity.com.au



Attachment:
Extract from AIPO trademark registration database
----------------------------------------------------------
Word:  Clarity.com.au  
Lodgement Date:  28-MAY-1999 
Class/es:  9 
Status:  Registered/Protected 
Kind:  n/a 
Type:  Word 
 
Owner/s: Clarity International Limited 
 ACN: 063732883 

Goods & Services 

Class: 9 Software-Operational Support System (OSS) developed
for networks of telecommunications carriers and utility
companies 

----------------------------------------------------



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