Recently, we sold AustralianLamb.com.au to Meat & Livestock Australia Limited.
The sale was negotiated via Corporation Service Company, and the transaction was one of the smoothest I’ve ever been involved in.
I say “smoothest” because sometimes, as a domain investor, if you get an initial enquiry from CSC Digital Brand Services you wonder which way the transaction will go? Are they going to try and assert some sort of “rights” over the domain name? Or are they willing to negotiate a fair price?
The latter was the case in this instance. And Joe from CSC was friendly and professional to deal with. He made the deal happen quickly (including payment).
In my experience, if you don’t register domain names that comprise trademarks (or if the words are generic and/or geographic), then you haven’t got a problem. And that has always been the way we operate. In all our years of trading, we’ve never lost a domain name to a dispute.
But we had nothing to do with the TV commercial!
Ned O’Meara – 15th September 2017
Great sale! It’s the perfect domain for their marketing campaigns.
That’s very sage advice for anyone investing in .com.au domains. Registering trademark infringing domains is a sure-fire way to get yourself into trouble!
Thankfully, I’ve never lost a domain either. I’ve had just two complaints during my time in the Australian market (general domain complaints, not auDRP). Both of these were entirely frivolous and the results were in my favour, given the complaints were groundless and I was fully compliant with auDA policies.
Under the existing complaints policy, there are no disincentives for lodging frivolous complaints. It’s basically a ‘free kick’. Complainants can attempt to take business assets that don’t belong to them, at no cost, and with no consequences for making groundless complaints.
I firmly believe that the current complaints policy is unnecessary and largely ineffective, I know that many others share this view. With an effective au Dispute Resolution Policy (auDRP) already in place, it’s very difficult to justify the continuation of the complaints policy.
Thank goodness there’s a Policy Review Panel looking at this and other auDA policies!
yes luke the PRP is a great start, thats a guttsy ad ! i love the ” lets address the elephant in the room” LOL
tim