ICANN to pay $2 million to keep Trademark Clearinghouse “free” for registrars
ICANN is putting its money where its mouth is when it comes to helping new gTLDs be successful, committing $2 million to keep Trademark Clearinghouse access “free” for registrars.
While TMCH pricing for trademark owners is now well-publicized, ICANN COO Akram Attalah last night revealed some of the fees for new gTLD registries and registrars.
Registries will have to pay a one-time fee of $5,000 per TLD to access the TMCH, he said.
That was reduced from $10,000 during talks with TMCH back-end provider IBM after ICANN promised to handle billing and administration, he said.
There’s also going to be a $0.30 fee for each domain that matches a TMCH record registered during Sunrise and Trademark Claims periods, he added. The specifics on this fee were a little fuzzy.
But registrars won’t have to pay a penny, it seems. Attalah said that ICANN will pay IBM $2 million to make sure the Clearinghouse is accessible and free for registrars.
“ICANN will pay $400,000 per year for five years to keep the TMCH up and running and that provides free access to all registrars,” he said on last night’s new gTLDs update webinar.
It won’t be completely free for registrars, of course.
Registrars will have to do some implementation work to support the new Trademark Claims and Sunrise specs, but the absence of fees gives them one less excuse to avoid the two rights protection periods.
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You cannot be serious ?
With 274 Objections and counting, and will be hearing from GAC , and WTO lurking (So Far) in the background, this whole thing is smelling like a cheap date.
Good luck all you .Spammers , its not to late to repent and buy yourselves a granfathered .COM Profit Center. Change your Mind Change your Future.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
It looks like we might see U.S. facing new gtld sunrises by August. .NYC shortly after, which will be huge.
Mayor Bloomberg on for the April 23 announcement in NYC.
At least one major new tld launch fully by year end most likely.
WEEEEEEEEEEE