The way I understand it is that to claim a *.com.au domain you have to
have some legal connection to the name.

w-dog.com.au obviously met this criteria and were granted the domain, but
not quite within the rules and regulations they agreed to when
registering the domain.

If W-Dog Pty Ltd have registered W-Dog as a trademark within
Australia than they have more legal connection to the wdog.com.au address 
and the current owner of wdog.com.au may be infringing W-Dog's registered 
trade-mark. If wdog.com.au marketted a product in a completely different
category to that which W-Dog Pty Ltd have registered their trademark then
W-Dog Pty Ltd would have considerably less standing in court.

>From INA's registration page for *.com.au domains: 

"Please note that the onus is on the Applicant to ensure the registration
and use of a domain name do no contravene any third party's rights (such
as those pertaining to a registered Trade Mark). If your domain name
infringes on another party's registered Trade Mark, you could be sued for
infringement!"

It seems to me that the current owner of w-dog.com.au has infringed W-Dog
Pty Ltd's tradmark.

PD


On Wed, 4 Aug 1999, AUSCITY wrote:

> Anyone care to express a considered opinion on this scenario? Or perhaps you
> know of a similar case (with oucome)  you care to share.
> 
> Big company 'W-Dog Pty Ltd' trademarks its name, 'W-Dog'.  They register a
> domain name of w-dog.com and w-dog.net
> 
> On the other side of Australia, a new small business is established and
> calls itself (Reg Business Name) wdog.com.au . wdog.com.au registers the
> domain www.wdog.com.au This business had not seen the W-Dog product because
> it was not publically available or in the marketplace. However it turns out
> that both organisations have much the same idea.
> 
> Big company 'W-Dog' cries foul play and threatens legal action against
> wdog.com.au for breach of trademark.
> 
> wdog.com.au has had its product in the market place for many months. Even
> though W-Dog registered its trademark before wdog.com.au was established,
> W-Dog still does not have its product in the market place nor will they
> provide proof of its existance. However their trademark details are written
> so generalised that it could pretty well tie up the whole industry. There is
> still no publically available information on its specific product.
> Apparently, W-Dog says its all very confidential. Plus the domain name of
> www.w-dog.com.au is still available. They have not registered it!
> 
> QUESTION: Should wdog.com.au be prevented from using the domain wdog.com.au
> ? Reason being breach of trademark.
> 
> Regards,
> Chas Cleland, Manager, AUSCITY
> auscity§auscity.com.au     www.auscity.com.au
> Phone: +61 3 5561 3077
> 
> 
> 
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