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Del Monte v Del Monte is the first new gTLD trademark objection

Kevin Murphy, March 15, 2013, 18:50:02 (UTC), Domain Registries

Two companies trading under the name Del Monte are involved in the first-to-be-revealed Legal Rights Objection, over the .delmonte gTLD, under the new gTLD program.
The World Intellectual Property Organization revealed the LRO — expected to be the first of many — this evening.
The applicant for .delmonte is a subsidiary of Fresh Del Monte Produce, Inc. The objector is Del Monte Corp.
Both companies are primarily known for canning fruit. According to Wikipedia, Fresh Del Monte was spun off from Del Monte in 1989 and continues to have a licensing arrangement to use the brand.
The deal apparently doesn’t extend to playing nicely over gTLDs, however.
Del Monte does business at delmonte.com, while Fresh Del Monte lives at freshdelmonte.com.
Legal Rights Objections allow trademark owners to challenge gTLD applications that look too much like their marks. It looks like Del Monte has a pretty good case, on the face of it.


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Comments (3)

  1. Rubens Kuhl says:

    Too bad all dispute resolution providers are a few days behind in updating their case lists. I’m really curious about an WIPO LRO from ECO the IGO against .ECO.
    BigRoom could buy .e.co from whoever owns it today (it’s listed for sale) and relaunch their services without a new gTLD…

  2. zack says:

    Can’t wait to see the Merck vs Merck battle for .merck.
    Merck Registry Holdings has filed two separate applications: community and standard. I’m assuming the community application was put in place to fight an anticipated application from Merck KGaA in the event it goes to contention set processes.
    There doesn’t appear to be any Objections filed although Merck KGaA did provide some PICs whereas Merck Registry Holdings did not.
    Gonna be interesting…these are two large companies that probably don’t play well together

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