In a few weeks, brand owners will have a brief, one-time opportunity to prevent cybersquatters from registering www.[YOURBRAND].xxx indefinitely, without incurring the yearly cost or hassle of yet another domain name registration.
Between September 7 and October 28, 2011 (“Sunrise B”) trademark owners with active federal registrations can submit their trademarked terms and, if approved, ICM (the .XXX registry) will indefinitely block the corresponding names from registration.
Brand owners may target domain names corresponding to the entire text (or complete textual component) of a trademark registered prior to September 1, 2011. These blocked domain names will then be:
“removed from the pool of domain names available for registration in future phases of the registry operation and the WHOIS information will simply list standard registry information. The corresponding domain name will resolve to a standard informational page indicating the status of the domain name as not available for registration or similar. Allowing the domain name to resolve is designed to prevent ‘synthetic DNS’ or non-DNS resolution systems from hi-jacking queries to these domain names.” Source.
Registrars will charge a non-refundable one-time fee to cover the submission, processing and validation of the relevant right. The fee is expected to be between $200 and $300. After the sunrise period, brand owners may need challenge abusive registrations through the registry’s dispute resolution procedures, including the Charter Eligibility Dispute Resolution Procedure (CEDRP), the Rapid Evaluation Service (RES), and ICANN’s Uniform Domain Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP). The registry expects RES/CEDRP provider fees to range between $750 and $1,500.
Sequel encourages brand owners take advantage of this procedure, and is here to help you in the process. To view more information about the Sunrise Period, visit http://www.icmregistry.com/launch-plan.php and http://www.icmregistry.com/sunrise-b.php. For assistance with protecting your trademarks from registration when Sunrise B opens, please contact us at info@sequellegal.com.