A new year is an especially good time to take a look at whole new territories opening up on the World Wide Web, and how that affects trademark holders whose names can become domain names in the new, expanded Internet.
Where .com has reigned supreme, now comes .computer, .graphics, and .onl (short for online) – new generic top level domains among what will soon be more than 1,000 more new gTLDs. As of Jan. 12, 2014, nearly 60 new top-level domains have been approved and delegated to their new owners for release into the wild. Brand holders can now get in on the new domains that have been rolling out since October 2013.
The good news is that trademark holders’ rights have rigorous protection during this expanding “unreal estate” of Internet top-level domains. ICANN, the International Committee for Assigned Names and Numbers, who came up with this domain expansion, went to great effort to protect brands. ICANN requires new TLD owners to set aside “sunrise periods” for trademark holders who have registered in the Trademark ClearingHouse, to claim say, the mybrand.technology domain or mybrand.ventures, mybrand.interntional, and so on. That is, trademark holders, registered in the Trademark ClearingHouse, get priority for new domains matching their brand.
After the sunrise period, trademark holders not registered with the Trademark ClearingHouse can still get priority over the general public for domains matching their marks, with a designated three-month window to stake their General Trademark Claims.
The not-so-good news is that the underpublicized 60-day Sunrise windows of opportunity to claim your mark in the new top-level domains may be closing, and soon, for first claims on the new domains. In fact, the first sunrise period for the Arabic “network,” شبكة, (pronounced dotshabka), already expired on Dec. 29, 2013. However, immediately after that sunrise period comes a 90-day trademark claims period for trademark holders NOT registered with the ClearingHouse, which ends on March 30, 2014.
Below are the Sunrise Period and General Trademark Claims dates for the TLDs already delegated to their new owners:
| New TLD Domains |
Sunrise Claims Start End |
General TM Claims Start End |
||
| .singles, .holdings, .guru, .clothing, .ventures, .bike, .plumbing | 11/26/13 |
01/25/14 |
01/27/14 |
04/29/14 |
| .photography, .lighting, .camera, .equipment, .estate, .gallery, .graphics | 12/03/13 |
02/01/14 |
02/03/14 |
05/06/14 |
| .uno, .menu | 12/09/13 |
02/07/14 |
03/19/14 |
06/17/14 |
| .land, .today, .technology, .kitchen, .directory, .contractors, .construction | 12/10/13 |
02/08/14 |
02/10/14 |
05/16/14 |
| .tattoo, .sexy | 12/11/13 |
02/09/14 |
02/25/14 |
05/26/14 |
| .tips, .voyage, .diamonds, enterprises | 12/17/13 |
02/15/14 |
12/17/13 |
02/15/14 |
| .ruhr | 01/21/14 |
02/20/14 |
03/27/14 |
06/25/14 |
| .recipes, .photos, .careers, .shoes | 12/24/13 |
02/22/14 |
02/24/14 |
05/27/14 |
| .cab, .domains, .limo | 12/31/13 |
03/01/14 |
03/03/14 |
06/03/14 |
| .systems, .management, .center, .company, .academy, .computer | 01/07/14 |
03/08/14 |
03/10/14 |
06/10/14 |
| .ceo | 02/14/14 |
03/12/14 |
03/17/14 |
06/15/14 |
| .email, .solutions, .builders, .support, .training | 01/14/14 |
03/15/14 |
03/17/14 |
06/17/14 |
| .buzz | 01/15/14 |
03/18/14 |
04/15/14 |
07/14/14 |
| .education, .institute, .repair, .camp, .glass, .solar | 01/28/14 |
03/29/14 |
03/31/14 |
07/01/14 |
For updates on current domain assignments and claim periods, go to the ICANN page here
