My arrival in Bondi Beach a year later was greeted with phone books stacked outside of my apartment block only to see weeks later the stack still standing, until eventually they were tossed in the bin. Today the splurge of these books in multiple formats continues to amaze me.

Now in the USA, San Francisco may be the first city to make a move to ban these books altogether. Let’s examine their reasoning. According to greenbiz.com local councils across the USA spend approximately $54 million a year to dispose of the books and another $9 million to recycle them. If this is true then their is not only an environmental reason but also an economical reason and when you combine these two you know action will eventually be taken.

In Australia there is a powerful lobby behind keeping unsolicited mail running with the usual line about how they are the lifeblood of small businesses, however with enough notice I am sure they can find better ways to get their message out and local online directories seem to an area that could cover this.

I have also spoken about how digital television could also reshape the advertising markets with local TV ads being delivered for specific area making it very affordable and another reason why James Packer is a thicky for getting rid of his interests in Nine.

The Yellow Pages in the USA have an opt out website where you can opt out of receiving them. I tried this in Australia and it took forever on a phone to finally opt out, yet I still kept receiving them – hardly self regulation at its best.

According to statistics “nearly 70% of adults in the United States ‘rarely or never’ use the phone book, and instead opt to use the Web-based search tools. I would guess the stats would be nearly exactly the same in Australia.

So now we have three very big reasons why the Yellow Pages cannot survive. Environmental and Economical for both the governments associated with real costs and businesses who are moving away from advertising in droves. Yellow Pages staff have posted some information here that cannot be backed up by any facts and figures, I am sure they have done their own internal polling of usage, and I am equally sure that will never see the light of day. Their big problem is they were slow to move in on the online world and now they are not even remotely as successful online as they should be. So they will cling to the past in the hope that they can wring some more dollars out of the few businesses that still enjoy some success from their services.

I can assure you a ban will not be effective for one company, that would not be fair, but unsolicited mail of any kind is on life support systems and agents are going to have to find better and more innovative ways to get their messages across.

If you are into mass mail marketing or letterbox drops, my opinion is that you should start now. Create a local market report that gets sent out to your local community and trial it for one year, where all in the community can read the report, go online and register to receive the same by electronic means. Annually you should also create a report across the board with a years worth of stats that looks cool, has a calendar attached and can be stuck on a fridge.

Subtle marketing works so much better than most of the in your face ‘I am awesome’ trash anyway.

Leaving aside the fact that only a simpleton would think they were owned by the same company and also leaving aside your impressions of the services or practices of Realestate1.com.au this lawsuit stinks – stinks bad, real bad (Elaine – Seinfeld)

IP Australia clarified this position and realestate.com.au wanted to reassure everyone that they were all soft and cuddly on this issue. What is at stake here is anyones use of the word realestate in their domain name across Australia.

Realestate.com.au under our laws definitely has a right to protect its brand – even though I think (personal opinion) every single instance of trademarks and copyright laws only protects the powerful and as this TED.com video demonstrates that industries can still thrive without these protections.

However, unless this company acts in its delivery of services or in any manner as if it is in some way affiliated with REA this is just plain wrong and we all should defend the rights to have the common term realestate in any domain name we feel appropriate. We should not allow the will of the pen of realestate.com.au’s legal department to force us into defending the use of a word that is no one’s to won or defend.

Let us not forget that REA acquired this domain name when under MelbourneIT’s rules (they were the monopoly registrar back then) you were not allowed to register common names like this, but that didn’t stop News Ltd and other big organizations slipping through with domains like news.com.au. For everyday folks like us, it was impossible to register these common names.

If Realestate1.com.au have done something wrong then REA have their right to take action, but this sets down a frightening precedent for all of us.

Smells bad, real bad!

If applications like iTunes present themselves as the ‘proverbial coffin’ for the music industry, Creative Commons provides the nails to hammer it shut – and change the way we produce content forever – just like Wikipedia re-shaped the encyclopedia.

Creative Commons licenses allows you to publish your work online, while letting others know exactly what they can, and can’t do with your work. You keep your copyright but allow people to copy and distribute your work provided they give you credit.

CC is already having an absolutely enormous impact on the creative production environment, for instead of having to use library music – or processed tracks offered up in Garage Band or Sound Track Pro – video production houses are now be able to access a whole world of talent.

CC applies to almost everything. It strives to provide undiscovered talent with a global stage – via the Internet. How will it apply to your marketing collateral?

The photographs you commission tomorrow; the words you have your copywriters draft; the video content your production companies deliver – is it Creative Commons?

What’s the impact?

Guest Author: Brett Clements from Platinum HD

Earlier this week I posted an article on apmasphere (a popular Australian Property Management online forum) about REINSW forces changes to NSW Government’s Residential Tenancies Bill, but after speaking with Sam Kremer, Legal Counsel from the REINSW earlier today it appears that the bill looks like being pushed through Parliament in its current form.

The NSW Residential Tenancy Bill 2010 is an extremely important piece of legislation for the real estate industry and it seems strange that after so much time and effort has been dedicated to creating the new bill that the Government sees fit to push it through in its current form without providing reasonable time.

The NSW Government have only provided “four or five days to read and understand the many changes in the final bill”, not much time for  stakeholders and industry bodies to review the recent overhaul to the original bill proposed back in Novemebr 2009, which was labelled as “the biggest attack on landlords in NSW’s history” by the Property Owners Association of NSW.

It’s been 23 years since the last NSW Residential Tenancy Bill was passed back in 1987 and now after 5 years in the making, why is there a huge push to pass the newly amended bill through Parliament right now? Especially, after providing very little opportunity for stakeholders to review the amendments and their possible repercussions.

In her speech before passing the motion that the bill be agreed to in principal, Hon. Virginia Judge, the Minister for Fair Trading and Minister for The Arts said ” the primary aim of the Residential Tenancies Bill 2010 is to rewrite and overhaul the current legislation. As I have outlined, the bill will bring the regulation of residential tenancies up to date and in line with modern industry practices. It will remove archaic and redundant provisions. It will also make more than 100 reforms, which have arisen from a review of the existing legislation—laws that have remained largely the same for more than 20 years.

All the amendments contained in the bill have been the subject of extensive consultation with individual landlords, agents and tenants; community groups who have an interest in this area; those who provide assistance and advice at the coalface every day to those with a tenancy problem; the Consumer, Trader and Tenancy Tribunal, which has the difficult job of trying to resolve tenancy disputes when things go wrong; and peak bodies such as the Tenants Union of NSW, the Real Estate Institute and the Property Owners Association.”

In his Parliamentary speech Shadow Minister for Fair Trading Greg Aplin MP said, “The draft of the Residential Tenancies Bill 2009 was a written expression of a philosophical view that tenants can prosper on their own, without considering the impact on their landlords; that the best way to achieve gains for tenants is to bludgeon their landlords into accepting unreasonable and, frankly, humiliating conditions; and that a government can seek to carry on with its plans in ignorance of the warning bells tolling loudly in the rental marketplace.”

It appears that the government have finally decided to sit up and take some notice to their constituents/stakeholders and have done an about-face on the original draft bill but with so many amendments it appears that the new bill is being pushed through Parliament fairly swiftly without allowing time for much consideration from the people who helped the Government get the bill back on track to what it should be.”

Greg Aplin also went on to say, “Despite all 1,600 submissions and many years of review, it still looks like the Government simply went to sleep on the couch and let the process of review roll over the top of it. That is, until the Government was woken up with a bucket of cold water thrown by various stakeholders—and its own members of Parliament who have heard the cries from their own shocked constituents. Unfortunately, this lack of early focus by the Government meant that everyone else had to waste time and emotional energy on a draft bill, which was a practical mess. It is dangerous to create many new rights, which are poorly expressed.

Despite a 23-year wait for reform, stakeholders now have just four or five days to read and understand the many changes in the final bill. This is an impossible task. The number of drafting errors and other faults, as indicated, should be sufficient notice to the Government to let the debate continue until the spring sittings. Several stakeholder committees are struggling with the ridiculous haste, suddenly come upon them, of seeking input from their members and responding with due attention to this complex bill. Until that time, the bell will continue to toll for thee.”

MP Ray Williams said, “I do not believe that this bill is much different from the draft bill. The Government has taken a long time to introduce it and the draft bill certainly sent shock waves through the community. I do not believe there was a fear campaign, although I do believe that many of the mum and dad investors were frightened about what could happen to their properties. It has been recently reported that one in 10 couples in New South Wales has a negatively geared investment property. That is a huge number of people and it represents an enormous percentage of the private rental market. Tenants NSW suggests that they are amateur landlords and that they should be removed from the market. I do not believe that we could provide adequate residential accommodation across this State if it were not for those many hundreds of thousands of mum and dad investors. The New South Wales Government could never provide enough accommodation given reports indicating that there are 27,000 homeless people in this State.”

MP Craig Baumann said,”Like so much of the legislation dreamt up by this struggling Government, the Residential Tenancies Bill 2010, when presented in draft form, was abhorrent. It highlighted once again just how incompetent and out of touch this Government has become. Fortunately, the most hideous elements of the draft bill have been duly dispatched thanks to the New South Wales Opposition, but not before the Government managed to upset, in some way, numerous elements of the real estate industry, terrify landlords, and waste the time of many stakeholders in the rental and tenancy industry as they attempted to grasp this bill. In the first instance, I condemn the Government for this short sightedness. “

MP Michael Richardson said, “One has only to read the statement issued by the Property Owners Association of New South Wales at the time the draft bill was released. The association described the bill as “the biggest attack on landlords in NSW’s history”. The Real Estate Institute of New South Wales was equally scathing in its condemnation of the draft legislation. Therefore, I am pleased that the Minister listened to the concerns expressed and that she amended that dangerous piece of legislation to make it far more reasonable and balanced, as the Minister herself said she had done in her agreement in principle speech.

The Real Estate Institute of New South Wales said in a release dated 4 June 2010 that is was pleased the Government had listened to its concerns and made key changes. However, the institute indicated that it still had some concerns about the legislation. It said that the Government was trying to rush the legislation through without sufficient time for proper consultation. I suspect that that is because the Government has made so many changes to the legislation that the full impact of those changes still needs to be considered. Some of the changes the Real Estate Institute of New South Wales pressured the Government to make include abandoning a proposal to give tenants the right to break a fixed term tenancy agreement during the fixed term in return for payment of a “break fee”.

As the member for Albury said, essentially that would have meant that that overruled the contract law and the tenant could simply tear up the contract, pay the “break fee”, and walk out the door. The institute also pressured the Government to scrap the compulsory proposal to cap a landlord’s damages, including loss of rent, if a tenant abandoned rented premises, and to maintain the current obligation on a landlord to mitigate their loss in such circumstances. That is only sensible. The Real Estate Institute further pressured the Government to provide greater certainty for landlords when terminating periodic tenancies, and to further limit its proposals to allow tenants to make minor changes to the landlord’s property or to sublet the property without the landlord’s consent. However, the institute still opposes these two proposals in principle and will continue to lobby against them. Allowing tenants to make minor changes to landlords’ property was the area of greatest concern in the bill for the Real Institute of New South Wales and the Property Owners’ Association of New South Wales. Having discussed this with some of my colleagues on this side of the House, I remain sceptical that the bill will encourage more people to invest in residential property and ease the rental shortage in this city that is pushing rents to unprecedented levels. Nevertheless, it is significantly better than the draft bill put out last November. “

MP Ms Clover Moore said, “given its length, I believe the bill should sit on the table for at least 28 days to enable members to consult with their communities. I also believe that the scare campaign initiated by the Real Estate Institute of New South Wales is unfounded and unhelpful. Most protections under this bill will help landlords and the modest improvements for tenants, such as making it easier to get a picture hook fixed in a living room, will not drive landlords out of the market.

The Tenants Union refers to data by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute that shows a very weak link between rental investment and tenancy law reform. Research shows that only 7 per cent of landlords have ever considered tenancy laws and that rental property investment is driven by the ability to negative gear and by potential property value gains. Many people consider property a safer investment than stocks or shares, and this bill will not lead to an exodus of landlords from the rental market.”

If the bill gets passed through the Upper House in its current form it will be interesting to see how many amendments will need to be made & how the new bill and its changes will affect agents and investment within NSW.

I understand that a decision needs to be made sometime but rather than pushing the bill through swiftly, I wish the government understood how changes in legislation (both small or large) impacts agents/property managers not only in the overall management and enforcement of tenancy laws but also in the day to day running of an agency.

It would be a pointless exercise to have all the Property Managers/Agents brought up to speed with the new legislation only to find that the Government have to make lots of amendments to the bill again shortly afterwards.

If you’d like to see more of the Parliamentary discussion around this important issue check out…

http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/hansart.nsf/8bd91bc90780f150ca256e630010302c/77ee8c5495bba52eca25773c0080fbcb?OpenDocument

and

http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/hansart.nsf/8bd91bc90780f150ca256e630010302c/4bd8828c7bb26479ca25773d0083c00c?OpenDocument

Yesterday Premier Keneally quietly introduced a new property tax, being referred to as a land transfer charge. The front page Sydney Morning Herald article today estimates it will “boost the state government coffers by an estimated $90mil annually.”

The new land transfer charge is a buyer’s tax and will be charged on the sale of residential and commercial property worth more than $500,000. Charged at a rate of 0.2% of a sale between $500,000 and $1mil, over $1mil the charge rises to 0.25% for the portion over $1mil. Therefore on $600,000 which is currently the Sydney median house price, the charge is $200, on $1mil, the charge is $1000.

Back in September 2008 I wrote a blog about the NSW state government and how their stamp duty real estate cash cow was drying up due to the Global Financial Crisis and lack of property sales. At that time the state government reliance on stamp duty revenue as a percentage of total tax revenue was a whopping 20%. The government was crying poor in September 2008 because due to poor economic conditions, less people were buying and selling, the state government was behind in stamp duty revenue by $180mil for the months of July, 2008 and August 2008 alone!

As the housing market starts to recover Premier Kenneally has decided to milk the cow again with another slug at the property market. As if we aren’t contributing enough as it is.

Premier Keneally apparently defended the tax by saying 70% of property transactions would not be affected, hello???! The median house price in Sydney is $600,000. In an article on www.smh.com.au today, the Real Estate Institute of NSW provided these statistics – “Of the 50 local government areas in Sydney, 34 have average house prices in excess of 500,000”.

Even more ridiculous is the Minister for Lands, Tony Kelly, explaining the new tax as part of a strategy to prevent property fraud? Do they think we are that stupid? Like that is a good enough excuse to waste another $90mil of our money?

Let’s just say what this is really about, the NSW state government is bankrupt, desperate and we may as well compare ourselves to the Greek economy because if they are desperate enough to “quietly” under the cover of the federal budget announcements introduce a new property tax things must be really, really, Greek economy style bad!

Apparently there are 35 fraudulent property transactions currently being investigated and what $90mil is needed for that?

Keneally, I thought you were doing ok till now, I mean the state was a mess when you took over but you have lost me completely with this one.

I woke up to the news this morning that Pauline Hanson will not sell her house to a Muslim or an Asian who lives overseas. I really don’t want to give her any more publicity and I do not want to get into a political debate on this, her views to me are so archaic. What I do want to point out is that we now live in such a small world because of globalisation and the Internet, and with Australia being such a multi-cultural society if you want to be successful at selling real estate in suburban Sydney today, you need to know about all these cultures that co-exist. It is the changing face of the buyer profile, it is the internet and social media, it’s a multi cultural, dynamic society that we meet when we sell real estate.

I have just got back from a holiday in Japan, I used to live there and I speak the language. When dealing with Japanese clients I know what to do and what not to. I have spent a month in China but I don’t know the culture as well and I definitely don’t speak the language.

Lately though I have had the opportunity of meeting several clients from mainland China. China is about to take over Japan as the world’s 2nd largest economy. (Pauline you have no idea what you are missing out on!)

Generally speaking, my knowledge of Chinese culture consists of Feng Shui, No. 8 is a lucky number and No. 4 represents death, so forget selling a house with No. 4 to a Chinese client (same in Japan and maybe all Asian countries)? I know that according to the principles of Feng Shui that it’s not good if you can see from the front of the house through to the back door etc. Really I don’t know much and I would like to know more.

So last week I had the opportunity to show a few properties to clients from China. Now I am not sure what Pauline Hanson’s agent would be able to do in this case as the client lives in China, does business in Australia and is an Australian citizen. His family (wife and children) live in China, his mother lives in Sydney but realistically he lives in China. He wants to buy a luxury home for his mother. We meet, I have several houses that fit the criteria. He is young and successful and speaks English, “should be easy” I think.

Well it is not easy and doing business is completely different. When showing the property the clients speak between themselves in Chinese so I am clueless, and the conversation I have with them is based on whether the house is good value or not. I had the chance to show a 2nd property to the same clients and an Australian friend joined them and he enlightened me on a few things. Firstly, whether they like the property or not is not important, it is whether the property represents good value. While a lot of clients I deal with inspect a property and say “I love the open plan feel, the CaesarStone kitchen etc”, you will apparently not hear that from a Chinese client.

The emotional impact that we seek from clients, (the basis of a good auction) is not so important to a Chinese client. When my vendor asked how the inspection went and if they liked the property, I had to say “Apparently that is not relevant”. I have a lot to learn and am respectfully curious and definitely up for the challenge!

Real estate agents deal with people of all walks of life and from all cultures. I feel sorry for Pauline Hanson’s agent, how is he going to filter these people? When he receives a call on her property is he going to ask if they are Muslim or not before he shows the property or ask to see their citizenship if they sound Asian? Anyone want to throw some money in for her airfare to the UK?

Obviously the industry is all for protecting the rights of tenants, however if proposed clauses such as the tenants ability to break a fixed term lease and tenants being able to make cosmetic changes, just as two examples, are approved there is a very real chance that some investors will move away from residential property. 

Industry bodies such as the REINSW are trying to highlight the issues, however it is up to all of us to educate as many people as we can about the potential impact of this Bill, particularly at a time when there is a lot of comment about the possible level of rent increases in 2010.

If you have the opportunity to make comment in your local media, or feel it is an issue that your local member can assist with make the effort before we are all burdened with increased disputes and frustrated landlords.

http://www.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/About_us/Legislation/Comment_on_proposed_legislation/Draft_Residential_Tenancies_Bill_2009.html?DCSext.ref=HomePageClick:Haveyoursay

April 2008
Statement regarding realestate.com.au‚

There has been considerable interest in the acceptance by IP Australia of the trade mark Œrealestate.com.au‚ for a range of goods and services including real estate affairs and advertising of real estate. The registration has been opposed by at least one party. Other parties have the opportunity to oppose until 17 April 2008.

Background
A trade mark‚s function is to distinguish, in a commercial sense, one person‚s goods or services from the similar goods or services of another.

Applications for trade mark registration are examined. Marks that other traders would ordinarily want to use, including those which are purely descriptive, would not normally be accepted. However, it is possible for an applicant to overcome problems of this nature with substantial evidence of use showing the trade mark has acquired distinctiveness or reputation.

If a trade mark is accepted, whether on the basis of evidence or not, it is advertised to allow others to oppose registration if they wish to do so.

Unlike examination, opposition allows both sides to fully put their case. It typically involves three stages of presentation of evidence which can in total take over 12 months. At the conclusion of the evidence stages, a Hearing Officer will decide whether to register or refuse the trade mark. This decision may be appealed to the Federal Court.

This particular trade mark application went through the normal examination process and as would be expected, evidence of use was required before it was accepted.

As noted above, registration of this trade mark has been opposed. The opposition process will allow opposing parties to express their views about the appropriateness of registration of the mark.

**If the mark were to be registered, registration would provide rights in the mark as a whole and not in specific parts of it. Moreover, where parts of a mark are descriptive, registration would not necessarily stop others from using those terms. The law also provides a range of defences to infringement action, including where the term is used descriptively. This type of conflict would be resolved by determining whether consumers are likely to be confused by the similarity in the respective terms. It would for instance be highly unlikely that the owner could prevent use of the term „real estate‰ by others.

IP Australia has no role in determining infringement matters. These are decided by the courts.

End of letter.

Realestate.com.au Limited (REA) has applied to register “realestate.com.au” as a trade mark for a very wide range of services relating to real estate, including ‘Real estate affairs’, ‘financial services’ and ‘advertising of real estate in electronic and printed format’. If this proceeds through it will be registered by the Australian Trade Mark Office.

I have received quite a few emails on this very subject. Here is an excerpt from one of these emails.

The Australian Trade Mark Office usually ignores “.com” or “.com.au” in assessing applications. In practical terms, the application for “realestate.com.au” is effectively an attempt to trade mark “realestate”. I currently control the domain name xxxrealestate.com.au. A lawyer working for REA has sent me a letter requiring me to “cease use of the domain name “xxxrealestate.com.au” (or any other name that includes “realestate.com.au”) and arrange for the transfer of that domain name to REA”. I have not responded to the letter. I know of at least 300 other domain names, perhaps your’s, that includes “realestate.com.au”

The email above has been going around the traps and points to a certain website receiving a notice from REA asking them to cease using this domain. I spoke with IP Australia today and not surprisingly they actually told me that they have had a great deal of response and any media enquiries for this Trademark are directed to one person, who has not returned my calls. However, I did get to have a brief conversation with one of their staff members.

So here is what I have learnt from IP Australia.
1. This Trademark was initially applied for in September 2005
2. They usually ignore the .com or .com.au as it is just an address.
3. If a company wants to take action against another company for breach of trademark then it is up to the parties to resolve the matter.

I left a few messages to speak with the person assigned to media liaisons and marketing directly from IP Australia but I thought I would post this now anyway as they have not returned my calls.

Certain types of trademarks make me cringe, especially ones that are ambiguous in nature. If you look online you will see thousands of domain names with the words realestate.com.au included in the domain name. REA has assured me and I am sure they will send out a letter to agents assuring them that their intentions are honourable.

The Trademark in question only relates to realestate.com.au being used – despite the circulated letter telling us that the words real and estate could also be applied. Is REA going to enforce this on each of these domain names? I doubt it, but there is the problem, I cannot say “categorically no”, because it is open to interpretation.

Of course it would make no sense for realestate.com.au to go around issuing letters to their own clients, but it does give them room to do it to all of the websites that are in competition or companies that are not clients with them and have the words realestate.com.au somewhere in the domain name and if do not have like registered business names or companies.

Recently Apple has sued New York Green campaign for using an ‘Apple’ that Apple said is too similar. Judge for yourself, but to me it is nothing like the Apple logo and this is my biggest problem with the realestate.com.au trademark. Whilst this may be a stretch and yes the USA have different laws (the realestate.com.au trademark only applies to the Australian market) it does raise so many questions.

The major one being, that REA’s legal department could issues legal letters to companies who would then need to defend themselves and I doubt this would be a cheap exercise for any small/medium company. So my only problem with this is the interpretation of the Trademark in question.

After a conversation with REA, they have made it clear they will only be doing this with websites that have no intention, but to mimic the look or name of realestate.com.au. I have no problem with any company protecting its image, but I think this one is just too open to interpretation.

HERE IS A RESPONSE FROM REALESTATE.COM.AU

You may have recently received an email from Mick Hollingsworth Managing Director of ABC Photosigns in Sunshine, Victoria in regards to our application to register our name, ‘realestate.com.au’, as a trade mark.

We would like to clarify a number of his claims surrounding the trade mark application to reassure that trade marking ‘realestate.com.au’ will not restrict your trading or marketing of your real estate business.

1. What we are doing?
We have made an application to register our trade mark ‘realestate.com.au’. This is a very common practice for any business that is seeking to protect what it has established over many years.

The trade mark application is for the name ‘realestate.com.au’ not ‘real estate’ or any other version of those words.

By clicking on this link, you can see other examples of Australians companies that have also registered trade marks: http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/trademarks/ex_index.shtml

2. Why have we made this application?
We have invested heavily in building our brand over the past 10 years. In fact, much of our business is built upon the recognition amongst our customers of the name ‘realestate.com.au’. Increasingly more and more consumers choose realestate.com.au as their first place to look at property.

As the website has become increasingly popular, there are an ever increasing number of companies who have set up websites that look like ours and who often apply for a business name similar to ours. While imitation is a nice compliment, we want to make sure that our brand and our website are not copied. Similarly, it is like someone opening an Agency just down the road from you, using the same colours, agency design and a very similar name to yours!

3. What is the process we went through.
We’ve applied to the Australian Trade Marks Office to register realestate.com.au as a trade mark. It went through a standard, straightforward process, including a review of the application which resulted in the Office determining that we should be granted the trade mark.

4. What does this mean for you?
We are registering the trade mark ‘realestate.com.au’ not ‘real estate’ or any other version of those words.

This does not affect your ability to describe your business using terms like; ‘real estate’, or for example if your business was named ‘Richmond real estate’ or ‘Bobs real estate it would not stop you from using the domain names richmondrealestate.com.au or bobsrealestate.com.au.

Our concern with abcrealestate.com.au is that ‘abc’ is a generic name and doesn’t describe the business.

Please be assured that our application is only to protect our trade mark that has been our name for over 10 years, realestate.com.au.

Yours sincerely,
Shaun Di Gregorio

So there we have it, I am sure we will have two sides to this, one which over dramatises the effect this trademark could have and one that plays down its effect, so somewhere in the middle will be the true effect if it gets fully approved. To me it makes no sense for REA to push the boundaries of what can be done with this trademark, mainly because the negative press they will receive will only damage their business at a time where they want to be softening their relationships with agents.

But to me even Shaun’s letter does raise more questions than it answers. I think anyone who looks at www.abcrealestate.com.au and thinks that it looks even remotely like realestate.com.au needs their eyes checked. Secondly, today I have around 30 domain names registered under my name and I have only one business name. In the late 90′s and early 2000′s, you needed a business name that closely matched a domain name to register a domain, but not anymore. Today you only have to prove you have a service that is relevant to be able to register a domain name.

To me it is just too open to interpretation and I do not think our industry can rely on the goodwill of any major organisation without legal protection, when that organisations main aim is to increase shareholders revenue.