So, if I am living in the province of Sichuan and am searching for a hairdresser on the internet, it may make more sense for me to search for “hairdresser.sichuan” or “理髮師.四川省” than to search for a “.china” or a “.cn” website. I would have little interest in knowing about hairdressers in far away places as Beijing or Shanghai. Or I might consider searching for a website under “.hair.” In other words, you should keep track on the development of the domain name space and especially keep an eye on the launch of new “geo” or “industry” top level domains with relevance for your business both in- and outside of China.

The applications for new gTLDs will be made public presumably early next year and are expected to launch in 2012.

How to protect my intellectual properties under all these new generic top level domains?

In case you are interested in applying for a domain name in one of the new generic top level domains (i.e. “trademark.car” if you are in the automotive industry), you will have a chance to apply for your domain name in a pre-launch period for trademark and other rights holders. This will increase your chance of registering your domain name, and minimize the risk of cybersquatting, once the new gTLD (i.e. “.car”) is made available to the general public.

In addition you may also consider investing in a domain name monitoring service that would alert you in case somebody is registering a domain name in the new gTLDs, and this domain name is violating your intellectual property rights. As domain name registrations (except for sunrise phases) are based on the “first-come-first-served” principle, it is recommended to proactively register those domain names you either consider to use at a later stage, or that you would not like others to register, provided, of course, that you do not infringe on others’ rights.

Since only few companies will be able to afford a global defensive domain name registration policy, considering the large expected number of new top level domain names, it is recommended to focus more on monitoring for infringements.

Lower costs associated with enforcement

ICANN is requiring the new gTLD registry operators to offer a “Uniform Rapid Suspension” service, which will lower the costs for filing a complaint against a registrant of an infringing domain name as well as reduce the processing time of the domain name disputes.

So in essence it is recommended that international companies:

a) Keep an eye on new interesting geoTLDs, citiTLDs and industryTLDs,

b) Once new gTLDs are launched, apply for “trademark.TLD” in the sunrise phase, and

c) Monitor for potentially infringing domain name registrations in other new gTLDs.

The author is Jannik Skou, Partner at Thomsen Trampedach GmbH, Switzerland

Jannik Skou, Partner at Thomsen Trampedach GmbH, Switzerland