How It Will Work As of March 30, 2015, trademark owners who have registered their marks with the Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH) will have an opportunity to purchase the .sucks gTLD before the sale opens to the general public on June 1, 2015. This period of time strictly designated to registered trademark owners with the TMCH is called the “sunrise” period. Canada-based Vox Populi Registry Ltd. has established a suggested retail price of $2,499 per year for domain names registered during the sunrise period. After the sunrise period sets, the standard registration fee will be approximately $249 per name. However, sticking to its claim of allowing individuals to find their voices, there will be a “consumer advocate subsidized” price tier reserved for individuals who have complaints with a company. These domains will cost $9.95 each and will become available in September 2015. The caveat is that the domain cannot be used for a website, instead redirecting all traffic to a discussion forum on the everything.sucks website.
Vox Populi has further announced that it will offer its registered users a “domain block” service, which allows registered users to prevent a name from being registered by any member of the public. The dotSucks Registry has created a list of premium .sucks names such as life.sucks and divorce.sucks. These will be available starting in the TMCH sunrise period and continuing through the general availability phase. After the purchase of a .sucks domain name, it is assumed that trademark owners will take all necessary steps to ensure that the domain name embodying the .sucks gTLD remains inactive. Trademark owners will still have the ability to safeguard their registered marks via ICANN’s existing trademark protections and enforcement mechanisms in the event they decide not to invest in the .sucks domain names. Over the years, ICANN has implemented the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). In the event an individual or entity uses a trademark owner’s mark in a manner that violates the trademark owner’s rights, the trademark owner may invoke the UDRP proceeding. To be successful in UDRP arbitration, the trademark owner must establish the following elements: · The domain name registered by the domain name registrant is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the trademark owner has rights · The domain name registrant has no rights or legitimate interest with respect to the domain name in question · The domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith. If the trademark owner is successful in the UDRP action, the domain name may be transferred or cancelled. Historically, a UDRP proceeding has been a fairly reasonable and effective way to get the return of hijacked domains using the trademark of another company. Here, however, the domain registrant might have a reasonably legitimate interest in establishing a domain using the trademark since comment and criticism are legitimately protected by the First Amendment. It will be interesting to see how the UDRP arbitrators will interpret the bad faith element within a proceeding.Review articles and blog posts by our list of insurance experts!
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