Remember when you were young, making mud pies in the backyard after rain and not knowing what you would do with the pies afterward? Yeah, well, that’s kind of what ICANN has done by proposing to open the floodgates for an unlimited expansion of generic top-level domains (gTLDs). ICANN stands for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. The non-profit organization is supposed to bring order to the Internet, mediate disputes among domain owners, and bank regulates generic top-level domains such as.com or.net. Essentially, this is fancy verbiage that translates to ICANN being the big cheese of the Internet.
As trademark attorneys, our clients constantly struggle to monitor the use of their trademarks in domain names daily. This is a time-consuming and costly process. It is also heartbreaking for clients who have invested energy in creating a livelihood around a word or phrase, which is then used by someone else to pass off similar or competing goods around the world. If this monitoring process is burdensome now with only a few generic top-level domains, can you imagine what will happen when gTLDs can be completely individualized? It is mind-blowing and probably the biggest mud pie anyone has ever made.
The President of the International Trademark Association, Richard Heath, recently communicated his position to the Subcommittee on Courts and Competition Policy Committee on the Judiciary in the U.S. House of Representatives. Heath voiced the opinion of INTA that ICANN has not provided sufficient guidelines on how trademark owners will be protected. Heath’s communication can be viewed at: http://www.inta.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2015&Itemid=152&getcontent=3 INTA also communicated their position to the CEO of ICANN, Rod Beckstrom: http://www.inta.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2016&Itemid=152&getcontent=3.
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Trademark owners need more assurance that their rights will be protected before creating more gTLDs. Otherwise, it looks as though ICANN is merely trying to increase its relevance in the Internet world and Registrars’ fees rather than looking out for the interests of domain owners. Remember when you were young, making mud pies in the backyard after rain and not knowing what you would do with the pies afterward? Yeah, well, that’s kind of what ICANN has done by proposing to open the floodgates for an unlimited expansion of generic top-level domains (gTLDs).
ICANN stands for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Essentially, this is fancy verbiage that translates to ICANN being the big cheese of the Internet. The non-profit organization is supposed to bring order to the Internet, mediate disputes among domain owners, and bank regulates generic top-level domains such as.com or.net. As trademark attorneys, our clients constantly struggle to monitor the use of their trademarks in domain names daily.
This is a time-consuming and costly process. It is also heartbreaking for clients who have invested energy in creating a livelihood around a word or phrase, which is then used by someone else to pass off similar or competing goods around the world. If this monitoring process is burdensome now with only a few generic top-level domains, can you imagine what will happen when gTLDs can be completely individualized? It is mind-blowing and probably the biggest mud pie anyone has ever made.
The President of the International Trademark Association, Richard Heath, recently communicated his position to the Subcommittee on Courts and Competition Policy Committee on the Judiciary in the U.S. House of Representatives. Heath voiced the opinion of INTA that ICANN has not provided sufficient guidelines on how trademark owners will be protected.
Heath’s communication can be viewed at: http://www.inta.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2015&Itemid=152&getcontent=3 INTA also communicated their position to the CEO of ICANN, Rod Beckstrom: http://www.inta.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2016&Itemid=152&getcontent=3 Trademark owners need more assurance that their rights are going to be protected before any more gTLDs are created. Otherwise, it looks as though ICANN is merely trying to increase its relevance in the Internet world and Registrars’ fees rather than looking out for the interests of domain owners.
Pie anyone?
Copyright 2008 Hodgson Law Group – Cheryl L. Hodgson, J.D. For expert Branding advice, visit http://brandaideblog.com. Visit us online: http://www.hodgson-law.com. BRANDAIDE: Driving Your Brand to Distinction
