Front Running On Proposed g’TLD’s: Companies Are Getting Trademarks On g’TLD’s
The article talks about how certain companies, which are prospective g’TLD applicants, have already filed trademark applications associated with generic TLD strings such as .MUSIC, .MOVIE, and .BLOG.
“This type of “front running” by prospective applicants trying to game the process potentially interferes with other legitimate applications.”
What the author of this article is saying is that companies desiring certain new g’TLD extensions have filed trademark applications with various countries around the world, in an attempt to secure their application over other competitive applications for the same TLD, trying to avoid ICANN’s own rules for the allocation of these new extensions, which would award extensions with multiple applications to the highest bidder.
According to the article, one company organized in the British Virgin Islands has applied for 8 trademarks with the United States Trademark Office, for the extensions; .kids, .books., .buy, .baby, .poker, .casino, .movie, and .golf.”
“These applications sought protection for the marks in connection with the following services: “domain name services, namely the creation of and maintenance of of a registrar of domain names and the registration of domain names.”
The article calls on ICANN to take a stand against the practice which will undermine the whole new g’TLD rollout.
All of us who have been around a while have seen domains granted during the sunrise (trademark) period for new extensions granted on recently filed trademarks, even on generic terms that should not be allowed to be trademarked.
Of course this paper raises other larger issues on how the abuse of trademark registrations are being used to acquire rights in and to domain names and entire extensions.
I strongly advise you to take the time to read through this well written and well researched paper.
Especially the folks at ICANN.
More reason to take a step back and make sure the new extensions get done the right way, the first time.
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Michael, the company he’s referring to is parent company of Mind + Machines. You can see their CEO Antony Van Couvering’s response here:
http://domainnamewire.com/2009/06/29/companies-file-trademarks-for-new-top-level-domain-names/
Andrew
Thanks for the link to Mr. Couvering’s response.
I was under the impression that you cannot be granted a TM without supplying a specimen to the USPTO. They must have all just applied with an “Intent To Use”. I’m not sure that these Intent To Use applications mean anything. If someone else actually gets the .tld instead of the Intent To Use applicant I don’t believe you can use the Intent To Use as legal recourse to get the .tld. Furthermore if someone else gets the .tld, its going to be hard for the Intent To Use applicant to supply a specimen.
I think JB did a writeup once on all the ICANN insiders’ attempts to TM the single letter .com names in anticipation of their eventual release.
Disgraceful, at best.