Earlier this week, Corsearch’s own Robert Kriner provided an overview and status report for the new gTLD program in a webinar entitled, “gTLD Madness: The Brand Owner’s Road to the Big Show.”
March is a hectic month for the new gTLD program, with the deadline for Legal Rights Objections on March 13 and the Trademark Clearinghouse launching on March 26.
To date, 1,930 new gTLDS have been applied for in the following categories:
664 .brand
66 Geographic
1,846 Standard
84 Community
116 IDN (local language characters)
Geographically, the breakdown of new gTLD applications looks like this:
675 Europe
911 North America
17 Africa
24 Latin America/Caribbean
303 Asia/Pacific
Twenty-one applications have been withdrawn so far. In late February, the String Similarity Review was completed, resulting in two non-exact match contention sets (.hotels & .hoteis, and .unicorn & .unicom). In total, 754 applications remain in contention.
Kriner also presented an overview of the Trademark Clearinghouse and how it works. The Trademark Clearinghouse is not a Rights Protection Mechanism and does not block others from registering your trademark. However, brand owners who have registered their trademarks as a domain during the Sunrise period will receive a notification if anyone registers a match of their trademark. He suggested that organizations should consider registering brand names that they have plans to launch in the future.
Organizations should also begin planning ahead for the new gTLDs by preparing for the Trademark Clearinghouse with a complete trademark portfolio review, reviewing issues that have been posted for public comment, and following initial evaluation results.
To keep up with all of the fast-moving developments in the new gTLD program, you should visit the ICANN website and blog, and sign for up for its newsletter, along with checking back here at T+B for regular updates.
To receive a copy of the full presentation and an audio recording of the webinar submit your request to access the materials here.
