With the commercial growth of the Internet, the value in domain names has increased significantly.  With this has come issues such as 'cybersquatting' where an unauthorised party with no legitimate interest in a domain, registers the domain name which is identical or closely similar to another businesses trade mark or trading name. The domain squatter's predominant purpose is to derive commercial gain from this type of practice.  A trade mark dispute is one avenue to address these issues. However there are also alternative mechanisms to dispute domain names.

The Uniform Domain Name Dispute Policy (UDRP) created by ICANN is the primary method to do so. A trade mark owner can successfully seek transfer of a domain name registered by another if all certain criteria are met. The UDRP primarily deals with top level domain names such as ".com" and ".net".

Australia has a similar scheme in place for its secondary level domain names such  as ".com.au" and "net.au".  The .au Dispute Resolution Policy (auDRP) is modelled closely on the UDRP model and provides a useful alternative method to seek the transfer of illegitimate domain name registrations.

Place an Online Enquiry to contact an IP Lawyer or call us on 1300 768 730.