LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Damien Wilson <wilbs@seol.net.au>
  To  : <linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au>
  Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 21:22:48 +0930

[OT] Legal advice required (web related)

Hi all,

Seeing as there seem to be quite a few good legal minds on this list (or
people with connections to good legal minds), I am after a little bit of
advice...

Recently (back in December last year), I registered a dot com for a friend
that I was creating a Q&D website for and due to his ISP being reluctant to
provide hosting for him until certain network upgrades were performed on the
ISP's end, the website has only just gone online over Easter with a
different ISP.

I received an email this morning from the person who owns the Australian
trademark "Aussiewood". This dot com that was registered is aussiewood.com.
The owner of the trademark has asked us to cease using the name in Australia
as they own that name.

Now, my question is does this type of thing apply to dot coms? A quick look
at the information supplied in the trademark database (search for no. 817994
at http://pericles.ipaustralia.gov.au/atmoss/falcon.application_start) and a
look at the website (http://www.aussiewood.com) shows that they have nothing
in common bar the name. Can the owner of this trademark force me to hand
over the domain to them? From what I have gathered, this would only apply if
the trademark was registered world-wide.

Can any of you shed some light on this rather murky subject?

Many thanks

--
Regards

Damien Wilson
Customer Support
Green Phone Inc.
Phone: 1300 655 304
Email: wilbs@seol.net.au

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