There is a current dispute between two air charter businesses over the domain name aircharterservices.com.au.
It is being dealt with via the auDRP process. For those that don’t know, auDRP stands for Australian Dispute Resolution Policy. In simple terms, auDA (the Australian domain name regulator) describes it as follows:
The .au Dispute Resolution Policy aims to provide a cheaper, speedier alternative to litigation to resolve disputes between the registrant of a .au domain name and a party with competing rights in the domain name.
The Complainant is Air Charter Service (Aust) Pty Ltd. They supposedly are the registrant of the domain name aircharterservice.com.au. However, the WhoIs shows something different (screenshot below). Their eligibility appears to be on the basis of a lapsed trademark 1382358 (renewal fee not paid). Their website seems to be productive.
Given the lapsed TM and questionable registrant status, I wonder if this will cause issues for them?
The Respondent is AVMIN PTY LTD. The subject domain aircharterservices.com.au resolves to avmin.com.au. Nice looking productive website – they describe themselves as Air Charter Specialists.
I would have thought that this auDRP could be easily defended given that the respondent is engaged in providing “air charter services”. That is very much a generic description.
But I’m not an expert, so we shall see! The Panelist is Warwick Rothnie from Melbourne.
What do you think?
Given that the domain falls under the new licensing rules, even if the trademark was still active, it would not meet the eligibility criteria for “exact match word trademark”, so that argument is mute.
Given that the current owner provides a service related to the domain name, as per the new rules, they meet the current eligibility criteria.
Personally I think the complainant is wasting their money and that of the respondent. I would be surprised if the panel finds in favour of the complainant. Saying that I’m not an expert either and don’t have all the details of the case.