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perth airport / com / au being sued

They are walking a very fine line with the registration and use in my view, personally I wouldn't be fighting it. If you read that UDRP it was no slam dunk victory either.
 
I wonder how dot.com in this area would be viewed, I've had www.goldcoastairport.com , www.sunshinecoastairport.com and www.herveybayairport.com ranking for years under the .com.au websites with no problems.
I always have a link to the actual website for the airport from my site.

They tick along nicely re sales of car rentals, flights and accommodation.

Mind you the first 2 domains were dropped by the airports and I purchased on a drop service, in both cases I think they were dropped by accident.

Don
 
snoopy said:
They are walking a very fine line with the registration and use in my view, personally I wouldn't be fighting it. If you read that UDRP it was no slam dunk victory either.
Click to expand...

Wouldn't you? The fact is that 'Perth Airport' is an official locality - a suburb of Perth just like Claremont for example.

auDA withheld it with thousands of other geographic domains and then released to the public so they obviously considered it 'generic' too.

Would Sydney City Council have a claim on Sydney.com.au? I don't think so.

I reckon good on the registrant in defending this and not bowing to bullying lawyer pressure.

I'd also note that "Perth Airport" is a TM and despite this the auDRP complaint was denied. As I've said many times bad faith is all about the use! (however saying that apparently he has the airport's logo on the site - that's not going to help the case!)
 
DavidL said:
Wouldn't you? The fact is that 'Perth Airport' is an official locality - a suburb of Perth just like Claremont for example.

auDA withheld it with thousands of other geographic domains and then released to the public so they obviously considered it 'generic' too.

Would Sydney City Council have a claim on Sydney.com.au? I don't think so.

I reckon good on the registrant in defending this and not bowing to bullying lawyer pressure.

I'd also note that "Perth Airport" is a TM and despite this the auDRP complaint was denied. As I've said many times bad faith is all about the use! (however saying that apparently he has the airport's logo on the site - that's not going to help the case!)
Click to expand...

It is known for being the name of an airport, it isn't comparable to a suburb with hundreds of land owners. Very few people are likely to associate the term "perth airport" as being a suburb and clearly the use of the name was related to the airport. What else is it going to be about other than what the trademark relates to?

You can read the UDRP complaint, it only failed on one element, that is a close call. Personally I would not defend this name, I think the owner has a very real chance of losing a significant amount of money in court defending a name that is dicey.
 
geodomains said:
I wonder how dot.com in this area would be viewed, I've had www.goldcoastairport.com , www.sunshinecoastairport.com and www.herveybayairport.com ranking for years under the .com.au websites with no problems.
I always have a link to the actual website for the airport from my site.

They tick along nicely re sales of car rentals, flights and accommodation.

Mind you the first 2 domains were dropped by the airports and I purchased on a drop service, in both cases I think they were dropped by accident.

Don
Click to expand...

that's awesome! i'm new here so learning about setting up sites like this and letting them tick over some decent traffic is heaps interesting. Is adsense the best way of advertising? I'm sure there's topics on this - I'll have to keep digging around the forum :)
 
There is a big difference between a hearing by a tribunal such as UDRP and hearing in the Federal Court. The issues will be very different.

Would love to know what the "reasonable offer" was. Probably cost a fortune in legal fees. Wouldn't want to be the losing party and have to pay the other persons costs.
 
snoopy said:
It is known for being the name of an airport, it isn't comparable to a suburb with hundreds of land owners. Very few people are likely to associate the term "perth airport" as being a suburb and clearly the use of the name was related to the airport. What else is it going to be about other than what the trademark relates to?

You can read the UDRP complaint, it only failed on one element, that is a close call. Personally I would not defend this name, I think the owner has a very real chance of losing a significant amount of money in court defending a name that is dicey.
Click to expand...

Oh snoopy - I don't know whether you are just being deliberately argumentative or you just can't see anything positive regarding domains whether it's valuation, defending, developing, registration.

Remember this guy defended an WIPO/auDRP which are known to be heavily biased towards the complainant. The courts tend to be fairer so I'm sure he'll be OK.

Plus remember that to be 'sued', it's not the case that if you lose you have to pay an arbitrary whopping great fine to the other party. The onus is on the other party to demonstrate their loss.

In this case Perth Airport would have to show that they actually lost business through this guy using that domain and put a dollar figure on it for compensation. Even you would have to admit this would be a long bow to draw.

geodomains said:
I wonder how dot.com in this area would be viewed, I've had www.goldcoastairport.com , www.sunshinecoastairport.com and www.herveybayairport.com ranking for years under the .com.au websites with no problems.
I always have a link to the actual website for the airport from my site.
Don
Click to expand...

Hey Don - same deal really auDRP fundamentals are the same as WIPO. But just as in the case we're discussing, I'm sure if you were challenged you would defend it OK esp with the link to the official site. I'd add a clearer disclaimer though just to be safe.

The OKI Data principles:

The prevailing view is that a reseller of goods has a right to incorporate a manufacturer’s mark in an offering of goods and services when the record shows the following:

1. The respondent actually offers the goods and services at issue;
2. the respondent uses the site only to offer those goods;
3. the site accurately reveals the lack of affiliation with the trademark owner; and
4. the respondent is not trying to corner the market on all relevant domain names, thus depriving the trademark owner of own use of its mark in a domain name.​
 
DavidL said:
Plus remember that to be 'sued', it's not the case that if you lose you have to pay an arbitrary whopping great fine to the other party. The onus is on the other party to demonstrate their loss.
Click to expand...

I'm thinking legal fees to defend a name and pay the other side (if the case is lost) for a name that isn't worth much if anything and is doubtful from the beginning. Can't imagine the costs being under mid 5 figures, one of the lawyers here would have a better idea though. It is bad odds.

DavidL said:
In this case Perth Airport would have to show that they actually lost business through this guy using that domain and put a dollar figure on it for compensation. Even you would have to admit this would be a long bow to draw.
Click to expand...

I think that is for a damages claim, not a claim of costs.

DavidL said:
Remember this guy defended an WIPO/auDRP which are known to be heavily biased towards the complainant.
Click to expand...

Cry me a river.....
 
Generally speaking it would cost around 100k to 200k to take a case to court such as this if you hired decent lawyers. Obviouslly it depends on how complex the issues are.

It would probably cost the same to defend.

And I agree, I wouldn't want to be in a position where I had to pay the winning party's costs.

You would want to be really sure of your position, whichever party you were.
 
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PerthAirport .com.au now has a copyright notice up for Westralia Airports Corporation Pty Ltd.

I wonder what lead to that outcome?

I couldn't find anything more on it other than the original article and the 2008 audrp.
 
Ash said:
PerthAirport .com.au now has a copyright notice up for Westralia Airports Corporation Pty Ltd.

I wonder what lead to that outcome?

I couldn't find anything more on it other than the original article and the 2008 audrp.
Click to expand...

Indeed.

Doing a whois of the domain and it is the registrant listed is WESTRALIA AIRPORTS CORPORATION PTY LIMITED

My bet is that this whole taking them to court business was just a way to entice them to hand over the domain at a much more reasonable price.
 
Yet another example of:

a) a domain name containing a TM being successfully defended (remember it's about the use, people!)
b) more tales of domain owners being sued which turn out not to be the case.

As bradderick said Westralia would have realised the futility of it and just paid the registrant... probably a lot more than they could have on the first place
 
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