The purpose of this site is to provide quick, reliable answers to practitioners working with trade mark oppositions and appeals. Therefore the aim is to keep excessive academic discussion to a minimum and make good use of relevant and helpful citation to authorities. ….
The website is a work in progress with additional details and material dealing with further grounds and links to be added. Based on what is up already, however, Andrew has some interesting ideas.
auda is conducting a review of the auDRP – the dispute resolution policy covering domain names registered in the .au domain name space.
The auDRP was derived from the UDRP, so many of the principles worked out under the latter are equally applicable under the auDRP. Two of the main differences, however, are that under the auDRP:
a complainant may have rights sufficient to found a complaint “in a name”, not just a trade mark; and
the auDRP requires a complaint to show only registration in bad faith or use in bad faith, it is not necessary to show both bad faith requirements have been satisfied.
There is some interesting information about how many disputes there have been and which service providers have been providing the dispute resolution services – in recent years it has been WIPO and LEADR. There is also a breakdown of fees charged by various bodies for dispute resolution under the UDRP.
One question posed is whether auda should put the fees charged for dispute resolution up. Other issues on which submissions are invited were identified by ICANN in Annex 2 to its Final Issues Report (pdf) in 2011 on the UDRP. They include:
Policy/Process Issue
Description
Safe Harbors
Policy should include clear safe harbors, such as to protect free speech and fair use or other non-commercial rights of registrants
Appeals
No appeals of process in policy itself– two options appeal of decision or trial de novo
Establish an internal appeals process to ensure implementation of fair trial requirements
Statute of Limitations
There should be an express time limitation for claims brought under the policy
Reverse Domain Name Hijacking/
Uniform Procedures for Transfers
A finding of reverse domain name hijacking is rarely found, and panelists should be encouraged to make this finding when appropriate
No specified timeframe for implementing transfers
Business Constituency
Delays often experienced in implementation of decisions by Registrars
Loser Pays Nothing
Losing Respondent should pay filing fees and attorney’s fees
However, I am coming to this late: submissions, if any, are supposed to be in by 31 January 2013.
TVNZ has a video report on the launch of Kim Dotcom’s Mega 2.0 on the anniversary of that raid.
The report includes Clive Elliott‘s view on the copyright significance of the encryption arrangements. Unlike Dropbox et al., only the user/uploader has the encryption keys for the files they upload.
As Clive pointed out, there are already players in the user-encrypted field: e.g. SpiderOak, Wuala (which don’t come with quite the same notoriety, but do have their own challenges from a user’s point of view).
The new user encryption arrangements, however, may well not save Mega 2.0 if there is other evidence of Mega 2.0 employees inciting or being involved in infringing activity: cf. e.g. Roadshow at [101] or Kazaa.
Following the conclusion of consultations about the draft Intellectual Property Legislation Amendment Regulations (the regulations to implement the “Raising the Bar” amendments), IP Australia has published a document outlining the outcomes of the consultation process.
The document outlines what IP Australia is proposing to do/implement in relation to:
customs seizure: regulations will be amended to require importers to provide full name, telephone number and address for service in ‘claim for release’ forms
applicants for patents will have 2 months to respond to a direction to request examination after examination has been deferred
acceptance period after 1st report on patent application has been issued will be reduced to 12 months
“IP Australia will not require a statement of entitlement at filing for standard patents (or at national phase entry for PCT applications). Instead, the statement will be required when the applicant requests examination, as part of the approved form.” Applicants for an innovation patent will still need to provide the statement when filing the application
The Commissioner / Registrar will retain discretion to decide whether hearings should be decided on the papers without oral presentation
Apparently, there are technical corrections that will be implemented to
