Is too much freedom a bad thing? Established trademark owners may think so, as a result of the relaxation of restrictions for generic top-level domains (gTLDs). On January 12, 2012, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) began accepting applications for new gTLDs that are essentially limited only by the imagination of the applicant. Applicants able to afford the initial $185,000 “evaluation fee” and ongoing maintenance fees will be entitled to coin their own gTLDs to compete with conventional gTLDs such as .com, .net, .org, etc.
Unfortunately, this expansion of the universe of potential gTLDs places a greater burden on trademark owners to police their marks. ICANN does not accept reservations or pre-registrations based on trademarks, but registries will be required to operate sunrise or intellectual property claims services for the protection of trademarks in the new gTLDs.
While it is possible that wealthy trademark owners will purchase gTLDs identical to their marks (e.g., ".toyota"), it is impractical for trademark owners to purchase rights to their trademarks as second level domains for each of the potentially unlimited number of new gTLDs (e.g., toyota.car, toyota.auto, toyota.suv, etc.).
Hopefully, the high cost of entry will ward off the average cybersquatter and trademark pirate from establishing infringing gTLDs. Continuous monitoring of developments is recommended nonetheless.
