Archive for the ‘Domain Names’ Category
« Older Entries |VANOC Gets Sour Taste From Lululemon
Thursday, December 17th, 2009
Vancouver based yoga wear retailing phenom Lululemon Atletica has tweaked the nose of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC), with a new line of clothing. A story yesterday reported that Lululemon has introduced a new line of clothing named “Cool Sporting Event That Takes Place in British Columbia Between 2009 & 2011 Edition”. VANOC reportedly is upset that Lululemon has only complied with the letter and not the spirit of the laws in Canada that protect the various trademarks used to promote the Olympic Games generally, and the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games specifically.
The clothing line in question features various items in the national colours of Canada, the U.S., Sweden and Germany. Notably, the Canadian hoodies feature gold zippers while the zippers in the colours of other countries have silver zippers. Lululemon lost out to the Hudson’s Bay Company in its bid to be the official apparel supplier to the Canadian Olympic team for the Summer and Winter Games during the period from 2006 to 2012.
Readers of the Knowledge Bytes newsletter will be aware of the legislative hammers that are at VANOC’s disposal to enforce its trademark rights against both would-be infringers and ambush marketers alike. These include the Olympic and Paralympic Marks Act, which contains lists of specific words that either can’t be used at all, or that can’t be used in combination with other specific words–for example the combination of “Vancouver” and “2010″.
Posted in Domain Names, Famous Marks, Protection & Enforcement, Trade-mark Oppositions | No Comments »
IDNs on the Fast Track
Friday, November 20th, 2009
As has been widely reported, ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) recently approved the Internationalized Domain Name Fast Track Process at its Open Meeting in Seoul on October 30, 2009. Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) are domain names featuring non-Latin characters before and after “the dot” – for example, imagine the domain name trademarkblog.ca where both the “trademarkblog” and the “ca” (thought it wouldn’t be .ca) are both written in Chinese characters.
The IDN Fast Track launched on November 16, 2009. As of that date, nations and territories can apply to ICANN for Internet extensions reflecting their name in characters from their national language. Criteria for acceptance include government and community support and a stability evaluation. If applications meet the criteria, successful national and territorial applicants will be approved to start accepting registrations. It is expected that use of non-Latin based scripts may begin sometime in 2010. ICANN states that as of November 16th they have already received six requests from countries/territories representing three different languages.
Perhaps jumping the gun a bit, the Russian domain name registry .RU is already accepting sunrise applications for Cyrillic character trademarks for the Cyrillic translation of .RU, although ICANN has not yet granted this extension. DotAsia announced that it plans to release IDN registrations in 2010.
While the launch of IDNs is welcome news to those who don’t use Latin characters, brand owners will want to consider carefully how best to obtain protection of their trademarks with these new IDNs. For example, careful consideration should be given to exactly how a trademark is translated into the foreign characters and also whether a registration of a transliteration or a phonetic interpretation of the trademark is warranted.
Posted in Domain Names | No Comments »
Proactive registrations can save money
Monday, August 31st, 2009
According to a recent study by the domain management and brand protection company Corporation Service Company (CSC), more money is being spent on reclaiming domain names from third parties through the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (“UDRP”) than if brand owners had registered the domains proactively.
Under the study, all UDRP cases filed between January 2000 and May 2009 with the two major UDRP providers were analyzed. The study found that more than $220 million was spent on UDRP proceedings in the period, but proactive registration of domain names would have cost only $1.1 million – a potential savings of $219 million.
Interestingly, CSC’s study indicates that of the domains that were reclaimed by brand owners, almost 4,000 have been subsequently lapsed and are available again for registration. As well, apparently 3,000 domains that were reclaimed lapsed and then were re-registered – sometimes by third parties.
The results of the study underscore the importance of proactive registration and brand management in saving both time and money.
Posted in Branding, Domain Names | No Comments »