Earlier this year the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced its new “.xxx” generic top level domain (gTLD) name catering for the adult entertainment community on the internet.
Trade mark owners wishing to prevent any misuse of their registered trade marks by third parties seeking to register corresponding domain names in the .xxx gTLD name space have a window of opportunity to 28 October 2011 under a pre-launch “ Sunrise Period ” to reserve their trade marks with the Registry of .xxx domain names. The reservation is a one-off process (including a reservation fee) open to owners of trade marks which have been registered (in any jurisdiction) prior to 1 September 2011 or for the owners of existing domain names which have been registered prior to 1 February 2011. Reserved domain names will resolve to a standard information page indicating the status of the domain name as being “reserved”.