Australian Technology and IP Business

Domain name disputes 2007 update

WIPO reports that in 2007, a record 2,156 complaints alleging cybersquatting - or the abusive registration of trademarks on the Internet - were filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) Arbitration and Mediation Center (Center), representing an 18% increase over 2006 and a 48% increase over 2005.

WIPO parties have settled a quarter of all cases without a panel decision. Of the remainder, 85% of panel decisions have ordered transfer of the domain names in question to the complainant and 15% of the complaints were denied, leaving the names in the possession of the registration holder.

The top five sectors for complainant business activity were Biotechnology and Pharmaceuticals, Banking and Finance, Internet and IT, Retail, and Entertainment.

Domain Name Tasting

Domain name tasting exploits the fact that someone registering a domain can keep it for up to five days and then return it for free. Some operators are using that grace period to test domain names for marketability. Visitors find an empty site.

A proposal has been put to ICANN, which oversees the grace period, to limit the number of refunds any registrar can claim on behalf of customers.

It wants the operators of generic top level domains (gTLDs) such as .com or .org to be restricted in the refunds they can offer. It has proposed that they only be allowed to offer refunds to 10% of the newly registered domain names in any given month. If that number is under 50 they will be allowed to refund up to 50 fees.

Australian Startup Carnival

VS Consulting has hosted the first Australian Startup Carnival which assessed 28 Australian tech startups.

There is a detailed profile of each of the contestants including their sources of funding and business model.

3 businesses were named winners by an independent judging panel.

via Ross Dawson.

Website designer fails in action against former employee

In Dais Studio Pty Ltd v Bullet Creative Pty Ltd [2007] FCA 2054 Dais failed in its action against a former employee it accused of copying without authorisation 2 utility files from its website design program.

Dais sued for infringement of copyright, to restrain the unauthorised use of confidential information, for breach of contract and for breach of certain provisions of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth).

Although the judge concluded that each of the 2 small files  was a computer program, and therefore a literary work capable of being protected by copyright, Dais failed to prove they were a substantial part of the source code as a whole in their program.