By Ann Ford, Gina Durham and Ryan Compton
• Brand owners should prepare for the impending release of numerous new gTLDs – the first few of which will be open for registration soon, and even sooner during the sunrise periods for brand-owners who have registered their trademarks in the Trademark Clearinghouse.
• The first four new gTLDs are especially novel as they are composed of non-Latin strings – gLTDs in Arabic, Cyrillic and Chinese characters. This is a first for gTLDs.
• A product to block registered trademarks from being registered as domain names in 200+ new gTLDs has been unveiled. Brand owners must consider whether this new product should be part of their overall domain name enforcement strategy.
• Brand owners that are negotiating gTLD Registry Agreements with ICANN should be aware that recent changes (as of October 23rd) have been made to the draft form agreement.
Find out more about the latest regarding gLTDs.