Dressed Up With Nowhere We Can Go
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday May 1, 2000
Olympic swimmer Susie O'Neil will be there. So will the State of Origin rugby league team and 700 invited guests. The only thing missing from the glitzy launch of eVentures's buy.com shopping site this Thursday will be the local domain name.
Sydney computer training company Angus Knight Learning's auction site buy.com.au was expected to go live today as the company prepares for a trial in the Federal Court against eVentures, a joint venture between News Corporation and Softbank formed to take prominent US Web brands to international markets.
Last month eVentures withdrew a Federal Court application seeking to prevent Angus Knight's founder, Mr Duncan Angus, from using the buy.com.au domain until a dispute over rights to the name was settled.
Mr Angus, who registered the domain in February 1999, had begun running advertising promoting the imminent launch of the site, coinciding with eVentures's million-dollar plans to launch a discount shopping business based on the US site buy.com.
Acting for Mr Angus, lawyer Mr Stephen White said it was unlikely his client would settle the case before the July trial.
``My client's position is it is simply not fair that large US firms come here and flex muscle to drive small organisations out of business in this market. [Buy] is a generic name used by many businesses," said Mr White.
He pointed to another case in the US where action is being taken against Kodak over rights to the domain ephoto.com. ``It is another example of a limited language being appropriated by trading companies so there is nothing left for a future generation."
Buy.com's Australian management have previously said the company would direct Internet users to the US Web address where they could then select an Australian sub-site.
© 2000 Sydney Morning Herald
Share This