[ga] Collisions in .au Trademark space

["McMeikan, Andrew" <andrew.mcmeikan@mitswa.com.au>]

Mostly of interest to Aussies but informative to everyone anyway.

The auDA report is in and available from http://www.auda.org.au/

media release http://www.auda.org.au/docs/name-final.html
states
"
The Panel has presented its final report to the auDA Board. The report
recommends a number of changes to domain name policies, including: 
*	no limit on the number of domain names per entity; 
*	a renewal period for all domain names; 
*	inclusion of trade marks as eligibility criteria for a domain name; 
*	a close and substantial connection between a domain name and its
licensee; 
*	creation of a 'reserved list' for domain names that may not be
licensed. 
"

Full text of report at
http://www.auda.org.au/panel/name/papers/finalreport.html

one glimmer is this bit
"
A number of panelists have disagreed with the recommendations allowing an
application for registration of an Australian trademark to form the basis
for registration of a domain name. The dissenting views come from Rowan
Groves representing the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, Tony
Hill (ISOC-AU), Cheryl Langdon-Orr and Leanne Schultz (connect.com.au).
Dissent on this point affects several recommendations under 3.3, most
notably b. and c., and 3.4b. 
The minority comments are informed by the belief that the .au DNS is
primarily an addressing system, that there should be no hierarchy attached
to rights to a domain name beyond 'first come, first served', and the
understanding that any relaxation of a framework such as the .au DNS opens
the door to practices which have not been enabled to any great degree before
now. The possibility may now exist that the benefits to be gained from
greater ease of, and flexibility in licence registration may be more than
offset by unnecessarily increasing the ease with which equitable access to
new domain names may be denied. In particular, the trademark system might be
used to hoard names or otherwise block access to names. 
"

other bits of interest are the ideas of auctioning or distributing by
lottery some of the (mainly geographic) reserved 2LD's

	cya,	Andrew...
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