NEWS ICANN board allows the .XXX gTLD to go ahead
Te board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has approved an application for the .XXX generic top-level domain.
Te application for .XXX received nine votes in favour and three against at the ICANN meeting in San Francisco on March 18.
ICM Registry made its original application for the gTLD in 2004. Despite being preliminarily approved by the ICANN board, the application was later rejected.
ICM appealed against this decision and an independent review panel found that “the Board’s reconsideration of that finding was not consistent with the application of neutral, objective and fair documented policy”.
Te independent review panel issued its decision on February 19, 2010.
Peter Dengate-Trush, chairman of the ICANN board, said: “I think that this is a testament to the accountability mechanisms that we have created. Te panel found that the ICANN board had acted improperly in declining the application on certain grounds last time, and so the board has accepted that.”
ICANN and ICM must now agree on a contract before confirming ICM as the registry for the .XXX gTLD. Te gTLD also has to be fully tested before it goes live.
Brand owners that wish to reserve their trademarks as .XXX domains will be able to do so under ICM’s sunrise programme.
Te first stage will allow adult entertainment companies with registered rights to reserve their domains. Brand owners outside of the adult entertainment industry will then be invited to protect their trademarks before the gTLD is launched.
It is unlikely that .XXX domains will be on sale before June 2011, according to Nick Wood, managing director of Com Laude, a domain name management firm.
Wood believes that ICM has developed a rights protection programme of great value to trademark holders beyond the adult entertainment industries.
He said: “It offers the possibility of registering a term in perpetuity for a single payment—and very importantly, this term will resolve only to a standard white page created by ICM Registry indicating that the term is reserved through the .XXX rights protection programme. Te corresponding WHOIS information will also contain standard registry contact details.”
He added: “Tis means that trademark owners who apply can be confident that their most important terms cannot be registered by third parties or associated with adult content.”
Patent reform gets Senate green light
On March 9, the US Senate approved what could be the first major reform of US patent law in almost 60 years. Te America Invents Act, also known as the Patent Reform Act of 2011, was passed with a majority of 95 to 5.
Senator Patrick Leahy introduced the bill to the Senate Judiciary Committee in January. Its aims include moving the US from a first-to-invent system for awarding patents to a first-to-file system, harmonising it with other jurisdictions.
Alexander Poltorak, founder and president of America Inventors for Patent Reform, a trade association that is opposed to the patent reform in its current state, said: “[W]e are not ready to support this
bill...Its new name notwithstanding, the America Invents Act is still anti-inventor and anti-small business legislation. Te fight now moves to the House.”
Te America Invents Act must now gain the approval of the US Congress.
8 World Intellectual Property Review March/April 2011
Formula One stalls in the third lap
Te EU General Court has ruled that the licensing arm of the group responsible for promoting the Formula One World Championship cannot prevent the registration of a community trademark containing the words ‘F1 Live’.
Te February 17 judgment upholds the decision of the Office of Harmonization for the Internal Market’s (OHIM) appeals board to block Formula One Licensing’s opposition.
Formula One Licensing opposed Racing-Live’s 2004 application for a figurative mark at OHIM in 2004. Te opposition division agreed with Formula One, but its decision was overturned on appeal.
Racing-Live’s figurative mark, which was transferred to Global Sports Media in 2010, contains the words ‘F1 Live’ and was applied for in classes 16, 38 and 41 relating to formula one racing.
Te opposition relied on existing marks including an international word mark and two national word marks for ‘F1’, as well as a community figurative mark for a logo containing the words ‘F1 Formula 1’.
Te General Court had to decide whether the figurative mark would confuse consumers considering its similarity to Formula One Licensing’s logotype mark.
It found that there is a lack of visual similarity and only limited phonetic and conceptual similarities between the marks.
It added: “…[I]t should be noted that the fact that the public attributes a generic meaning to the sign F1 means that it will understand that the mark applied for concerns Formula 1, but because of its totally different layout, the public will not make a connection between that mark and the activities of the applicant.”
Formula One Licensing may appeal against the General Court’s ruling—limited to points of law—to the European Court of Justice within two months of the decision.
www.worldipreview.com
©
iStockphoto.com / ToolX
©
iStockphoto.com / mevans
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 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76