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Trademark clearinghouse signs up 40 registrars

Kevin Murphy, November 9, 2010, Domain Registries

The ClearingHouse for Intellectual Property, CHIP, is signing up one or two domain name registrars to its system every day, according to its chief architect, attorney Bart Lieben.
Lieben tells me that 40 registrars have signed up since the IP protection service officially launched two weeks ago, and that there is strong interest among corporate-focussed registrars.
CHIP is a registry for companies’ trademark rights, designed to ease trademark protection in domain names. It’s backed by Deloitte and Lieben’s employer, the law firm Crowell & Moring.
For registrars, there’s an opportunity to offer value-added services to their corporate customers.
The company plans to offer its services to new top-level domain registries during their sunrise periods, and to existing registries and registrars on an ongoing basis.
It’s currently in use at .SO Registry, the recently relaunched Somalian registry, as well as .co.no, a third-level domain provider from Norway.

Sunrise for .so domains starts tonight

Kevin Murphy, October 31, 2010, Domain Registries

.SO Registry, manager of the internet’s newest open-doors top-level domain, will open its systems for sunrise registrations in a few hours, at midnight UTC.
The TLD is the country code for the Republic of Somalia, the mostly lawless east-African nation that is broadly recognized as a failed state.
For that reason, among others, the .so namespace is not likely to be as attractive to registrants as, say, the recent relaunch of Colombia’s .co.
Another reason, perhaps coupled to the fact that .so doesn’t really have a comparable English semantic value to .co, is that the registry appears to have done a rather poor job of publicizing the launch.
There has been no media activity as far as I can tell, and its web site does not currently list its approved registrars.
Key-Systems has press-released its involvement, and a quick Twitter poll earlier today revealed that EuroDNS, Blacknight and NetNames are also among the signed-up.
The back-end for the registry is being handled by Japanese operator GMO Registry.
During the trademarks-only sunrise period, which runs until November 30, companies have to commit to a minimum three-year registration, with a registry fee of $90, cheaper than most sunrise phases.
The .so registry has taken on most of the same sunrise policies as .co – its rules were written by the same people – with the noteworthy exception of the Protected Marks List.
.SO Registry is also the first to require trademark holders use CHIP, the new Clearing House for Intellectual Property, a venture launched earlier this month by sunrise specialist Bart Lieben, who recently joined the law firm Crowell & Moring.
After contested sunrise applications are wound up with a Pool.com auction, a landrush will follow, from December 16 to February 9, 2011. General availability is scheduled to kick off March 1.
.SO Registry recently published its restricted names list (pdf), which appears to be made up mostly of English-language profanities, as well as religiously and sexually oriented terms.
The term “gay” is among the restricted terms.
The registry also appears to have “wildcarded” about 20 strings on its restricted list, including %vagina%, %penis% and %lesbian%.

Law firm launches new TLD service

Kevin Murphy, October 19, 2010, Domain Registries

The law firm Crowell & Moring has launched a practice dedicated to helping companies apply for – and sue other applicants for – new top-level domains.
The company also said today it has hired Bart Lieben, the Brussels-based lawyer who probably has more recent experience launching new TLDs than most others in his field.
Crowell says it will offer these services:

* gTLD Assessment Services
o Feasibility study and strategic advice for brand owners and others prior to filing an application
* gTLD Application Services
o Preparation and filing of ‘New gTLD’ applications
* gTLD Litigation
o Against other applicants during and after the application process
o Against third parties opposing an application
* gTLD Launch and Implementation Assistance
o On-going assistance, post filing and execution of ICANN contract by applicant

With the new TLD round looking like a near certainty for 2011, there’s money to be made in consulting, and it’s hardly surprising that the lawyers are moving in.
World Trademark Review reported earlier this month that Hogan Lovells has become the first such firm to gain ICANN registrar accreditation in an effort to help its clients navigate new TLDs.
The new Crowell unit is being headed by Brussels-based Flip Petillion (an occasional WIPO panelist on UDRP cases) and Washington, DC-based John Stewart.
New hire Lieben has previously helped with the launches of .mobi and .tel. He was involved heavily with .CO Internet’s sunrise, and is currently helping GMO Registry and .SO Registry with the forthcoming .so launch.