Conclusion from Trademark Protection on the Internet in for Non Top-Level Domains Used as Top-level Domains

By Owen Smigelski, Esq.

© 2001-2003, All rights reserved.

This Comment is provided as educational material, and should not be utilized as legal advice. Reproduction is authorized with proper citation to this original source. For a free trademark consultation, please contact the author.

1. Preface
2. Introduction
3. Overview of Trademark Law
4. Overview of the Internet
   1. Internet History
   2. TCP/IP
   3. Domain Name System (DNS)
5. Internet Trademark Law
6. The non-US domains
   1. Introduction/Background
   2. Repurposed ccTLDs not currently accepting new registrations
   3. Repurposed ccTLDs with no trademark protection or dispute resolution procedure
   4. Repurposed ccTLDs with dispute resolution procedures based on old NSI examples
   5. Repurposed ccTLDs with dispute resolution procedures identical to ICANN's UDRP
7. Jurisdictional concerns with non-US domain names
8. Conclusion

VII.     Conclusion

            With the Internet increasingly becoming a global medium, and the potential for international legal disputes increasing, holders of trademarks are advised to register their trademarks within TLDs, both gTLDs and ccTLDs, in an effort to circumvent potential trademark disputes.  With hundreds of thousands of domains already registered within these repurposed ccTLDs, trademark holders are encouraged to ensure that they own the domain names associated with the eleven repurposed ccTLDs discussed in this Comment.  These eleven ccTLDs have the most potential to be abused, as they either presently being marketed, or have the potential to be marketed in the future.  Disputes arising out of registered domains are partially governed by dispute resolution procedures, and if those processes fail, the Lanham Act provides protection under its cyberpiracy protection amendment. 

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