Latest news of the domain name industry

Recent Posts

Uniregistry plans “dot-spanning” Sunrise periods and anti-gaming protection

Kevin Murphy, December 27, 2013, Domain Registries

Uniregistry is to offer a second Sunrise period in its new gTLDs, going over and above what is required by ICANN, aimed at companies with trademarks that “span the dot”.
Say you run a tattoo parlor and have a trademark on “Joe’s Tattoo”. The ICANN-mandated Sunrise would only allow you to register joestattoo.tattoo, but Uniregistry will allow you to buy joes.tattoo as well.
It would also allow “plurals and conjugations”, so a company with a trademark on “Joe’s Tattoos” would presumably also be eligible for joes.tattoo, even though they’re not an exact match.
This Sunrise B plan appears to apply to all of Uniregistry’s forthcoming gTLDs and was approved by ICANN recently (pdf).
The additional service would be invitation-only, restricted to companies that have participated in the regular Sunrise period, which Uniregistry is calling Sunrise A.
For Sunrise A, Uniregistry plans to allow mark owners to register regular resolving domain names or purchase “blocking” registrations, where the domain resolves to a non-monetized Uniregistry placeholder.
Sunrise B participants would not be able to purchase blocking registrations; for “dot-spanning” trademarks the name must resolve.
Uniregistry also plans to implement an “anti-hijack” measure to help prevent — or at least add friction to — .eu-style gaming by domain speculators during its launch periods.
If you participate in either Sunrise period, you won’t be able to later transfer your name to a third party without providing the registry with proof that you’ve also transferred the corresponding trademark registration.