proTECHt Update
06 June 2008
Domains
Sunrise launch of .mp for Northern Mariana Islands
The Domain Name Registry for The Northern Mariana Islands has
launched the registration of .mp domains. The Registry has launched
the registration of .mp domains with a Sunrise period for the
holders of some registered trade and service marks. Registration
will be unrestricted following the end of the Sunrise, although
certain geographic terms will be restricted, registration of some
generic terms such as sex.mp are also currently unavailable.
The Sunrise has started and will close on 31 August 2008 at
12:00pm GMT. Sunrise application is available to the
owners/co-owners or assignees of a nationally:
a) registered trade mark, European Community trade marks will be
deemed sufficient for this; or
b) service mark.
The mark must have been registered or applied for before 1 July
2007. If applying on the basis of an application for a trade mark,
the trade mark must be registered at the time the domain name
registration is complete.
The domain name must be identical to the word or textual
elements of the mark. However inclusion of the term 'sucks' will be
deemed identical for this purpose, for example
trade-mark-sucks.mp.
During the Sunrise, domain names will be allocated to the first
valid application. A Challenge Period for Sunrise
applications will operate between 8 September 2008, until 7
November 2008. During this period it will be possible to apply to
launch a dispute against a Sunrise application for a .mp domain on
four criteria. Please contact us for further details of this.
To complete the registration requires:
- the textual element of the mark
- the registration number/identifying the mark
- the application date of the mark
- the registration date of the mark
the jurisdiction, country or European Community of the
mark
The Registry plan to launch the period of unrestricted registration
of .mp domains on 1 September 2008, 12:00 pm GMT. The Registry do
not plan to provide a publicly available whois, displaying the
Registrant/owners of domains, as .mp domain names will be
encouraged for use in social networking.
Proposal for new .car domain
A proposal for new domain .car has been suggested by ATX Group.
ATX Group is the world's largest independent telematics services
provider to the automotive industry. Dotcar, similar to .mobi,
suggest that content of websites located by .car would need to meet
a criteria specifically for the delivery of web content into
vehicles. ATX Group suggests 'In addition to Web content, it is
envisioned that dot.car Web sites could also utilize such
telematics-centric, real-time data as vehicle performance and
maintenance diagnostics data, as well as vehicle location data.
Also proposed is a telematics firewall process specifically
designed to ensure the total protection of the vehicle from content
that is delivered over the air to the in-vehicle browser for the
entire life cycle of the automobile.'
Re-sale of .com.au Australian domains permitted
The Australian Domain Name Registry have amended the
registration policy so that as of 1 June 2008, owners of .com.au
domain name may resell these domains to other entities eligible to
register and hold a .com.au domain name. Previously reselling
.com.au domain name was prohibited. However two significant
restrictions exist on reselling .com.au domains. First, it is not
permitted to register a domain name for the sole purpose of resale
or transfer to a third party. Secondly, registrants/owners will not
be able to transfer their domain name for the first six months
after the initial registration (this does not apply to domain names
that have been renewed or previously transferred).
Monitoring
Google removes protection for Trade Mark holder from
Google's keywords
It is now possible for parties other than Trade Mark Holders to
bid on the right to keywords in Google's advertising sponsored link
system, AdWords. This follows the dismissal of a lawsuit in the
High Court against Yahoo! and its sister company Overture. Yahoo!
were sued by Victor Wilson the owner of a London-based catering
business. Mr Wilson held registered Community Trade Marks in some
food and hospitality-related goods and services, and sold snacks at
festivals under the name 'Mr Spicy'. However a search by the 'Mr
Spicy' in Yahoo!'s UK search engine revealed sponsored links for
Sainsbury's and a price comparison site PriceGrabber.co.uk, which
Mr Wilson suggest infringed his trade mark rights.
The commercial outcome is likely that the cost of acquiring the
use of such keywords will increase as non trade mark holders enter
bids for these terms. Brand owners should be extra vigilant with
their keyword portfolio.
Enforcement
ICANN enforcement against Registrars
ICANN's continuous enforcement activity has resulted in sending
enforcement notices to some Registrars. Registrars are the
organisations which it is necessary to submit applications via when
registering Generic Top Level Domains, such as .com domains. ICANN
relies upon the wider Internet community to report domains with
inaccurate data using the Whois Data Problem Report System (WDPRD),
developed in 2002. This has been followed by a prominent
identification of 10 Registrars by KnujOn (No Junk spelt backwards)
as those used to register the majority of domain names used in spam
email.
Contact
For further information, please contact Simon Chapman or Edmund McLaren.