The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has announced that it expects the expansion of generic top level domains (gTLDs) to be ready in 2011. It is now up to trademark owners to decide whether to register and operate their own top-level domain or to saddle up to fight others from registering top-level domains that might infringe their marks.

From May 2011 it will probably be possible for trademark owners to apply to operate their own top-level domains, e.g., .bechbruun for the lawfirm Bech-Bruun. However, the fees and costs involved in the operation and registration of the top-level domain could potentially amount to as much as US $ 2 million. For this reason it will probably only be very large and globally based companies, who will apply to get a top-level domain.

For those companies whose economy cannot justify such expenses the relevant alternative is to protect their trademarks against infringement from others. To do so trademark owners will have to watch the applications which will be publicly available on ICANN's website. Then trademark owners can file an objection against a gTLD that infringes their rights. Objections will be resolved before ICANN approves a gTLD application.

In order for trademark owners to monitor any potential infringement it will be of great importance to know when to check the ICANN website. The exact calendar date has not yet been set, but a relative timeline has been made, and the final dates will probably not differ that much from this outline. It is likely that the application period will run from early May and then for the objection period to run in the second half of 2011.

There are four grounds for which you can file a formal objection, whereas the second called Legal Rights Objection is probably the most interesting for trademark owners. ICANN has made it clear that this objection is to protect trademark rights. The protection includes the prohibition of the applied-for gTLD to take advantage of the objector's reputation or mark, or the chance of confusion with the objector's mark. However, some trademark owners will probably wait to file an objection until the application has passed ICANN's own Initial Evaluation.

(Read more about the New gTLD on ICANN's website, http://www.icann.org/en/tlds/select.htm)

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