If you are a trade mark owner and want to stake your claim to a
.pro, .name or .info domain name, you will have between 30-45 days
to do so before anyone can register any name on a first-come,
first-served basis. Those wanting .biz names will enjoy continuing
trade mark protection against cybersquatters.
Seven new generic top level domains will be available soon. In
addition to those mentioned above, .aero, .coop and .museum will be
made available to eligible applicants. There are already seven
generic top level domains, but only the best known ones, .com, .net
and .org, are publicly available.
A perceived risk of the new domains is that cybersquatters could
move quickly to grab, e.g., Microsoft.info. Representatives of the
registries that are due to make the names available from this
Summer, speaking at a meeting of the International Trademark
Association, explained how they will protect against this risk.
The registries overseeing .pro, .name and .info will offer a
so-called “sunrise period” of 30-45 days during which trade mark
owners can stake their claims. However, the registry overseeing
.biz will require any applicant for a name - at any time - to
submit evidence of its right to the name. The application will then
be judged for authenticity. Only commercial sites will be deemed
eligible for .biz names. Where more than one business has a
legitimate claim to a .biz name, the name will be assigned to a
competing applicant at random.
