Report On The Initial gTLD Launch: Taking A Ride With .BIKE

Despite the attempts of Reed Smith and some others in the intellectual property field to educate the public on the upcoming explosion in the number of global top-level domains ("gTLDs") (the string to the right of the dot, such as .com or .edu), we believe that the vast majority of the public, and even the majority of brand owners, is unaware that the first new gTLDs have recently launched. One such new gTLD is .BIKE.*

While the launch of .BIKE does not give us data to tell whether brand owners are "aware" of the new gTLDs, it does present a limited and controlled environment to test brand registration of second-level domain names in an industry-specific gTLD. There are approximately 150 brands of bicycles in the United States (according to the National Bicycle Dealer Association), but most of these brands are relatively small.