Gordon,

>The current problem with com.au is that business are finding it hard
>to register their trademarks and product names. I don't understand
>the reason why Melbourne IT will not allow this <snip>

Melbourne IT is continuing a policy that started before they became
the registrar for .com.au.  That policy is that .com.au is for commercial
entities, not products.

If we're going to change that policy and allow in some products
(trademarked ones), why discriminate in favour of trademarks?
Lets allow in ALL products!

Of course, one of the effects of this is that potentially hundreds
of thousands of domain names in .com.au would be taken up by
large companies owning trademarks, and those names would no
longer be available to Australian small businesses who currently
have the same name as a trademark.....
 
>For those who do not understand trademarks, a company that
>owns a registered trademark only owns it with respect to certain
>type of goods and services. For example Prince owns an Australian
>trademark for tennis racquets however a computer company also
>owns a  trademark called prince. How will it be decided who has
>the superior right to prince.tm.au? In most cases there will be
>more than 2 entities that own a registered trademark in respect of
>more than 2 categories of goods thus the legal fights will be enormous.

According to Ross Wilson of the trademarks office, there are about
200,000 registered trademarks in Australia, of which about five percent
are duplicates.  So 95% would have no problem, even in a SLD like
.tm.au for trademarks only.  For new ones, issue them on a first come
first served basis.  For the existing duplicates, some options are:

a) The existing trademark holders agree who will get it (some may waive
their interest 'cause they already have a domain name in another SLD)
b) The existing trademark holders agree to flip a coin/pull names from a
hat to decide who gets it
c) If they can't agree, no-one gets it.

After all, if we set up additional SLDs, then there is no shortage and every
trademark owner can get the name they want at a third level.  It won't be
exclusive - other entities may have the same third level name in another
SLD, but that's none of the DNS's business.

Trademark owners don't own names, and with rare exceptions, can't stop
the use of a name by some other entity.

Regards, Mark