Digital Branding Blog

DotMobi will release 100 domain names in a premium auction hosted by Sedo that begins November 28, and lasts until December 5. The auction will feature sports-related domains including clubs.mobi, games.mobi, soccer.mobi, and sports.mobi, as well as leisure names such as florists.mobi, photos.mobi, movies.mobi, and videos.mobi. Several beverage-related premium names will also be auctioned, including beer.mobi, tequila.mobi, vodka.mobi and wine.mobi. The premium domain name auction is dotMobi's third and last of 2007.

Posted by Tempy Wright at 3:45 PM | Permalink

The DotAsia registry received more than 15,000 applications during the first Sunrise period for .ASIA domain names. The initial Sunrise registration period was reserved for trademarks applied for before March 16, 2004. The applications came from a wide variety of widely-known companies and organizations. More than 600 domains received more than one application, creating competition for certain .ASIA names. The majority of the applications came from US companies.

Posted by Tempy Wright at 10:58 AM | Permalink

Sunrise Phase 2B (General Registered Marks), Sunrise Phase 2C (Extended Protection) and Sunrise Phase 3 (Registered Entity Names) for .ASIA began November 13 and will be open through January 15, 2008. VeriSign will accept Sunrise applications through January 11, 2008, to ensure that all requests are submitted before the registry deadline.

Based on feedback from the intellectual property rights community, the registry has published several addendum which provide additional considerations for Sunrise Phase 2C and Sunrise Phase 3, along with some clarifications for the general Sunrise process.

For Sunrise 2C, Acceptable Extensions have been broadened to include words and phrases used in the described goods and services for a Registered Mark, especially where a mark is registered with a trademark office that does not implement the Nice Classification system. Acceptable Extensions will also include the combination of two or more Registered Marks in their entirety (Exact Match and Acceptable Match).

For Sunrise Phase 3, the Acceptable Match considerations allow for initials and short forms of an Entity Name, as well as the omission of locality indications (e.g. the city, prefecture, province or country identifiers included in a Registered Entity Name). Sunrise Phase 3 has also expanded to include requests allowing for transliteration or Romanization of non-English trademarks to allow non-Latin based language trademark owners to protect their names before the general public has a chance to register them. In addition, applicants with registered marks that contain an existing extension (e.g., .com) as a suffix can omit that suffix in the domain name request. The registry will also accept applications based on exact matches for domain names that are the subject of a UDRP proceeding decision.

Complete details and requirements for each phase can be found on the .ASIA Web site and the Sunrise Addendums.

Posted by Tempy Wright at 2:15 PM | Permalink

An increasing number of companies are registering .CN domain names in an effort to secure their place in the Chinese Internet market. As of Oct. 1, there were more than 7.1 million registered .CN domains. Chinese companies are registering them for many reasons, including the ability to show other companies that they are a localized, China-based service, as well as to gain legal protection. Disputes about domain names are resolved in the country which owns it, so Chinese companies can avoid having to deal with foreign laws that they are unfamiliar with. Also, since disputes are decided in China, domestic companies have a large advantage over multinational corporations applying for the same domain names.

While many multinational companies have registered .CN domains to appeal to Chinese Internet users, a number of disputes involving cybersquatters have occurred, leading to problems for brand owners. China Internet Network Information Center, the .CN registry, recently released an updated definition of cybersquatting in an effort to better resolve disputes.

Posted by Tempy Wright at 10:45 AM | Permalink

The Sunrise Period for second-level .PE registrations will be open October 8 - December 31. During this period, all third-level .PE registrants can request a corresponding second-level .PE domain name. Registrations during this period will not be on a first-come, first-served basis. All applications will be approved based on an existing third-level domain. An IDN reservation period will be open from November 12 - January 12. Third-level registrants will be able to reserve the internationalized version of both the second-level and third-level domain name during this time. Open registrations begin December 12. The following IDN characters will be accepted - á, é, í, ó, ú, ñ, ü - as well as other characters from the Spanish and Catalan alphabet.

Posted by Tempy Wright at 1:13 PM | Permalink

SIDN, the Dutch registry, plans to introduce numerical .NL domains next January. A Sunrise Period for holders of registered Benelux and Community trademarks or trade names starts December 1, 2007. A numerical domain name consists exclusively of digits (e.g. 1234.nl) or of a combination of digits and a hyphen (e.g. 12-34.nl). Numerical .NL domains will go live and be open for registration without restrictions at the end of January 2008.

Posted by Tempy Wright at 12:05 PM | Permalink