Comments on: IP Australia clarifies realestate.com.au trademark application http://www.business2.com.au/2008/04/ip-australia-clarifies-realestatecomau-trademark-application/ Real Estate Agent News and Information Technology Sat, 11 Feb 2012 14:54:09 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Glenn Batten http://www.business2.com.au/2008/04/ip-australia-clarifies-realestatecomau-trademark-application/#comment-3618 Glenn Batten Fri, 11 Apr 2008 04:43:41 +0000 http://www.business2.com.au/2008/04/11/ip-australia-clarifies-realestatecomau-trademark-application/#comment-3618 Highly Unlikely.. but not Impossible, but since its decided by the courts, I doubt he could say that anyway. Intellectual property is a touchy subject and when somebody looks at securing a process, term, logo, system, etc etc that everybody uses then you can understand everyones scrutiny. As an example, in the US there is a huge battle going on over a patent protecting a "Real Estate Search and Location System and Method" that was issued in 1999. Many experts have claimed that the enforcement by the courts of such a patent would be "highly unlikely" yet that has not stopped the whole fracas. It is a mapping system "for locating available real estate properties for sale, lease or rental using a database of available properties at a central location and remote stations which use a graphic interface," according to the patent documents. It claims a computer implemented method of identifying available real estate properties by mapping the locations of the real estate properties in such a manner that an initial broad geographic map for a selected area can be "drilled down" by successive iterations to display greater levels of geographic detail including the locations of the available properties. So at the end of the day they claim that every real estate agent, broker, MLS, real estate portal and other website owes them money and they are going to court to get it. The same people took Microsoft to court with the same patent years ago but filed the paperwork under the wrong name so the judge threw it out. They have since worked out that companies the size of MS can throw and endless amount of lawyers at a case like this and they are now in the process of suing just a single agent in the hopes of setting a precedent to apply to larger fish. The original patent holder took on investors to form REAL (Real Estate Alliance Limited) that now owns the patent and is suing everybody. In December 2007 they tried to get certification of a class definition which meant that it would automatically apply to hundreds of thousands of brokers and agents across the country but the Judge through it out on technical grounds In March this year they filed against a huge number of other companies including : *************************************** Highly Unlikely.. but not Impossible, but since its decided by the courts, I doubt he could say that anyway.

Intellectual property is a touchy subject and when somebody looks at securing a process, term, logo, system, etc etc that everybody uses then you can understand everyones scrutiny.

As an example, in the US there is a huge battle going on over a patent protecting a “Real Estate Search and Location System and Method” that was issued in 1999. Many experts have claimed that the enforcement by the courts of such a patent would be “highly unlikely” yet that has not stopped the whole fracas.

It is a mapping system “for locating available real estate properties for sale, lease or rental using a database of available properties at a central location and remote stations which use a graphic interface,” according to the patent documents. It claims a computer implemented method of identifying available real estate properties by mapping the locations of the real estate properties in such a manner that an initial broad geographic map for a selected area can be “drilled down” by successive iterations to display greater levels of geographic detail including the locations of the available properties.

So at the end of the day they claim that every real estate agent, broker, MLS, real estate portal and other website owes them money and they are going to court to get it.

The same people took Microsoft to court with the same patent years ago but filed the paperwork under the wrong name so the judge threw it out. They have since worked out that companies the size of MS can throw and endless amount of lawyers at a case like this and they are now in the process of suing just a single agent in the hopes of setting a precedent to apply to larger fish. The original patent holder took on investors to form REAL (Real Estate Alliance Limited) that now owns the patent and is suing everybody.

In December 2007 they tried to get certification of a class definition which meant that it would automatically apply to hundreds of thousands of brokers and agents across the country but the Judge through it out on technical grounds

In March this year they filed against a huge number of other companies including :

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