A sweet solution? Donuts and trademarks

For many brands, the new generic top-level domain (gTLD) programme instigated and developed by ICANN over the last few years raises more questions than it answers, especially when it comes to intellectual property.

ICANN’s Intellectual Property Constituency has been a vocal and hardy champion of brand owners’ need to protect their trademarks, but the various competing interests within the programme have meant that ICANN’s main solution, the Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH), has not provided all brands with the protection they wanted.

For many, IP is still a major concern in the new programme.

Donuts, the largest registry operator for new gTLDs, is attempting to reassure brand owners by developing its own, additional IPprotection. The Domains Protected Marks List (DPML), unlike the TMCH, will allow brands to proactively block domain names being registered across all Donut-operated gTLDs; in theory, at least, this provides a more robust and reassuring level of protection. TB&I asked Bob Samuelson for more details.

How much interest has there been in the DPML?

Quite a bit. Interest has been very high and even predates the service's availability. Donuts spent considerable time designing the DPML to address the concerns expressed by intellectual property experts and rights holders. We've been very pleased so far with the order volume and with the number of registrars that have signed on to sell the service.

Can you tell us the wholesale price of the DPML?

That information isn't public, but we’ve seen retail pricing under $3,000 for the initial fiveyear term.

What happens if a trademark owner blocks a term using the DPML but another company that shares the trademark wants to register that term?

The other company with rights to the same term may "override" a DPML block and register the name in question. Keep in mind that a customer initiating an override must have: