Domain Due Diligence (DDD)

[findtim]

hi, i had a conversation on PM the other day and its all worked out fine but i thought i would bring it up in a FAKE situation so that others could have input, so lets talk in "fake"

I have a friend that has a business and in "taree" ( fake" ) anyway his PERFECT domain name came up on drop/netfleet and HE of course had no clue as MANY people wouldn't, so i give him a call and say "hey i can grab this for you" , during the process i had some PM's (thankyou) and some DDD was done, now i'm new to this domain game but not new to the web game and i just thought it would be all good education to put this out in the forum.

SO, some DDD was done and we found out that someone had registered a company name ( not my friend) that was exactly like the domain name i was about to bid on for him , but they registered the domain name only in nov/11 where as my friend has been in business for 23 years in "taree" , so lets call it www. tareeplanthire .com .au just for fun.

SO , who are these other people?, what does it cost to find out?, is my friend goignt o get into a dispute somewhere down the track? , and just for fun his business name isn't "taree plant hire" it is " john smith plants" but he hires plants so he should be intitled to register the above domain.

SO, DDD, i am sure there are a lot of people out there registering domains and not considering this and the possible outcomes, i know neddy has made many posts on this issue and all very helpful but as the "online realestate squeeze" continues surely there will be more problems with the "first come first served" type policy.

I really do not know what i'm trying to say here, what i'm trying to do is spark a conversation about this issue of domain names and registered companies/ trademarks / business names so any input would be great for whoever wants to jump on.

tim

 

[GGroup]

DavidL and Ned are pretty good at this type of thing. But, in general, I think many of us have a tendency to read too much into the gravity of .au disputes.

In this case (nice going for your friend by the way), either your friend is eligible to be the registrant or he isn't. End of story. If he satisfies the criteria, as stated by the auDA, he's golden.

If your friend is infringing on someone's business (whether by domain name, paper flyers or bullhorn), that is another matter.

Trademark/IP disputes are another issue again. Very simply, a trademark issue may involve a domain name/website but a dispute over a domain name is not automatically a trademark/IP issue - it is just an eligibility issue.

Again, a very simplified generalised version - as there are many shades of grey - and I'm no expert.

 

[findtim]

Grey is definately the colour in alot of situations

 

[Cooper Mills DomainLawyer]

The key with .au is 'first in first served', in fact most domain names will have many different parties who are eligible to register a them for example bank.com.au could be registered by ANZ, NAB, CBA and Westpac, all are eligible, but if ANZ gets in first then it is to bad for the other banks.

Happy to discuss off line by PM