New Generic Top Level Domains: Opportunities And Risks For Trade-Mark Owners

On June 20, 2011 the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) approved a plan to increase the number of generic top-level domains (gTLD) from the current 22 (which includes .com, .net and .org) to possibly hundreds.

The changes to the naming system, which is the culmination of six years of planning, discussions and public consultation, will mean that companies, organizations and individuals will be able to apply for a gTLD of their own design which may be an existing trade-mark, such as .microsoft, or a generic term such as .hockey. Parties obtaining such gTLDs will be required to operate a registry system and will be able to offer second level domains to others, like existing registrars do now, or maintain the gTLD for their own use. For example, a brand owner such as Kodak may register .kodak and make use of second level domains such as cameras.kodak, or lenses.kodak.