MANAGING DOMAIN NAMES IN THE SPOTLIGHT
THE DOMAIN NAME GOLD RUSH
Although new generic top-level domains are coming thick and fast, brand owners shouldn’t forget about exploiting and protecting themselves in the existing addresses, as Anthony Beltran explains.
A
ſt er years in the making, the new generic top-level domain (gTLD) land grab is underway. T e domain name industry
is seeing an average of fi ve new gTLDs entering the market every week, leaving lots of companies scrambling to keep up or even get started.
At the time of writing, the registration volumes over the past two months are far from the ‘big bang’ that many industry insiders were touting. But they are still healthy, given the amount of exposure the general public has had at this point.
New marketplace, old concerns
It’s easy to get caught up in the hype of new gTLDs and all the associated concerns, whether legitimate or not, that this massive selection of new choices brings to IP practitioners and trademark owners. But it’s just as easy to—and
44 Trademarks & Brands Online
more important for practitioners and companies not to—look past what is already out there in terms of generic domain names, such as .com, .net, and .org, and the hundreds of country-code TLDs (ccTLDs).
To put things in perspective, see the table on page 45 to see how new gTLD registrations stack up against existing gTLDs and ccTLDs.
T e existing domain name market remains very robust and grew by nearly 19 million new domain names last year, a staggering number. T e .com TLD remains on top but we are seeing huge growth in ccTLDs such as .ru (Russia) and .cn (China). With this strong growth, originating primarily in emerging markets, it remains essential for IP practitioners and trademark owners to plan and execute a sound strategy for the domain name portfolio that is tailored to their business.
Volume 3, Issue 2 Enforcement tools
A handful of tools has been created for trademark owners to enforce their rights in the domain name system; each method is appropriate in specifi c situations.
T e most common method used today to recover or shut down infringing domain names is dispute resolution. T e main types of dispute resolution are the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP), the newly-created Uniform Rapid Suspension System (URS), and various arbitration methods specifi c to ccTLDs. More than 5,000 UDRP cases are fi led each year, with 80 percent of them involving .com domain names.
T e UDRP has been eff ective, but it remains to be seen how strong the URS will be. Designed only for clear-cut cases of infringement in new
www.trademarksandbrandsonline.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60