The battle between the interests of domainers and trademark professionals continues with the publication of a new study claiming that Fortune 100 companies have not registered many of their trademarks in recently created generic top-level domains (gTLDs). The report suggests that “if historical registration data is a guide, brands are unlikely to undertake many defensive domain name registrations in the proposed new gTLDs, and furthermore are unlikely to be the victims of cybersquatting”.
The report follows on from its recent study which concluded that the cost of infringement in the new domain space will be low, but did not specifically address the issue of defensive registrations. The purpose of this new study, according to Antony Van Couvering, chief executive of the top-level domain consultancy, was therefore to “discover to what extent large companies – which have been the loudest critics of ICANN’s (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) new gTLD program – have actually registered their brands defensively in the already existing new gTLDs”.
Considering a sample of 1,043 brands, it found that brand names are registered as domain names 87% of the time in ‘.com’, ‘.net’ and ‘.org’; 67% of the time in ‘.info’ and ‘.biz’; and 29% in ‘.mobi’, ‘.asia’, ‘.cat’, ‘.jobs’, ‘.name’, ‘.pro’, ‘.tel’ and ‘.travel’ – “the newer ICANN-created gTLDs where it is easy to register a domain name, and may be attractive to cybersquatters”.
In theory, the study is good news for brand owners – there will be little infringement in the new domain space, so trademark counsel can sleep easy (except for those that do register their domains in new gTLDs, as they will have more work, and expense, to deal with. Yet is the picture really that clear cut? Again, defensive registration is just one aspect of the cost of domain name enforcement and new gTLDs will increase expenses related to watching and taking action against infringing sites – already a real and present burden for mark owners.
While this study presents an interesting analysis of the potential risk of infringement, it is not one that brand owners will see as reassuring evidence that future problems won’t affect them.
Courtesy: www.worldtrademarkreview.com
on Apr 12th, 2010 at 10:14 am
The implications are as below:
Outside of .com, even in large and established gTLDs (such as .biz), the registration patterns are haphazard. Brand owners do not register defensively here with any regularity.
Large brands, and their brand protection agencies heavily concentrate on domain registrations in .com, and are far less interested in other TLDs(Top Level Domains), and when it comes to the newest TLDs, they have shown very little interest at all. ( Examples of new TLDs include .mobi, .asia, .tel, .name, .cat, .jobs, etc).
Eg1: Verizon has vocally opposed any expansion of the new gTLD space and is a clear opponent of new top-level domains. One the key brands of Verizon is “FIOS.” Fios.com, fios.net and fios.org are all registered to Verizon. But Verizon has not registered fios.name. For under $15.00 per year, anyone can, today, register that name.
Eg2: Microsoft is also a leading opponent of new TLDs. It has, however, not registered “win32,” (one of its key brands,) in .tel
Eg3: Disney does not protect its theme-park brand. Disneyparks.com is registered, but disneyparks.biz is available for $8.99, as is disneyparks.asia
Conclusion:
If past behavior is predictive of future actions, then there will be a minimal amount of registration activity in new top-level-domains(gTLDs) by brand owners, and new gTLDs will be largely ignored by cybersquatters.
For a detailed analysis and report, please visit the link below,
http://www.mindsandmachines.com/2010/02/survey-shows-brands-dont-register-defensively-in-new-gtlds/
Regards,
Santosh H
E-Mail: santosh.h@ipott.co.in