More trademarks filed for new top level domain names.
ICANN won’t consider top level domain-specific trademarks when new TLD applications are evaluated.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark office won’t even grant them.
But that’s not stopping people from paying a few hundred dollars per class to file trademark applications.
The latest three come courtesy of the same guys who filed three applications for .store earlier this month.
The applications are for .auto, .tax, and .food. [Update: they also applied for “dotLIFE”]
I have no idea if they actually plan to launch new TLDs, but I sent the applicants an email to see what they’re up to.
Alexander Schubert says
Well,
I think two ways:
Put yourself in the shoes of an applicant. You are spending hundreds of thousands of Dollars in the process and maybe several years of work. All to get a few characters in the Top Level. You would be angry to see a third party owning TM rights and trying to extort money out of you. Thats a valid reason to file for a TM your own TLD application.
However it should be selfevident that a TM registration should not -UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES- be used against an existing TLD operator. And also not in order to acquire a certain TLD.
ICANN’s application process would be obsolete otherwise. And once a TLD is in the root it’s in the root, isn’t it? Existing TLD’s can not be trademarked for anything having to do anything remotely with the Internet – in my opinion not even by the registry operator. If a trademark already exists it can not be used against the registry operator.
If I see a dotSomething LLC owning a TM DotSomething there is a chance that there is no bad intent. If I see John Doe applying for 6 TLD-TM’s I am raising my eyebrows.
To all of you who do TLD’s: Be also aware of your 2nd level and TM’s. Do not accept generic terms in your sunrise period. Don’t end like .info or .eu, with almost all the community relevant namespace highjacked by the Trojan horse “Sunrise”.
Alexander Schubert
TLD applicant creator