USPTO: You Will Have To Contract With ICANN Before Applying For a Trademark For A New gTLD

Under the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) proposed examination guide, entitled “Applications for Marks Comprised of gTLDs for Domain Name Registration or Registry Services,” you will have to have a contract with ICANN to operate a new gTLD registry before you apply for a trademark for the gTLD: “The applicant must show that: …

ICANN Publishes the Dotless Domain Name Study

5 August 2013 ICANN is pleased to announce the publication of the Dotless Domain Name Security and Stability Study Report [PDF, 1.02 MB] by IT Security firm, Carve Systems LLC (Carve Systems). Dotless domain names are those that consist of a single label (e.g., http://example, or mail@example). Dotless names would require the inclusion of, for …

NTIA upset with Verisign, demands that it confirm it will process new TLD delegations

NTIA questions Verisign’s recent spate of concerns about new TLD rollout. ICANN has published a letter that Verisign sent to the U.S. National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA) regarding Verisign’s security and stability concerns for new top level domains as well as the NTIA’s response. The response shows that the NTIA doesn’t want Verisign playing …

DotConnectAfrica Comments and Questions on .Africa at the ICANN-47 Public Forum, Durban SA

Below is a complete unabridged version of the comment/questions raised by Ms. Sophia Bekele, Executive Director and CEO of DotConnectAfrica Trust, at the ICANN-47 Public Forum Meeting in Durban, Republic of South Africa on 18th July 2013. A shorter version was read out at the ICANN Public Forum Meeting on Thursday, July 18, 2013 due …

Africa DNS Awards Seen Premature

During the ICANN Durban 46 Conference, the organizers of the African strategies that is a product of a June 2012 meeting involving Steve Crocker, Chairman of ICANN’s Board of Directors,ICANN’s CEO-Designate Fadi Chehadé and its Interim CEO Akram Atallah with select African community members at ICANN’s 44th Public Meeting, in Prague, Czech Republic. The goal …

DotConnectAfrica requests for re-consideration of the NGPC Decision on its .africa application to the ICANN Governance Board

DotConnectAfrica is anticipating a review and reinstatement of their application for .africa gTLD string that has been in the center of controversy in the past two years since ICANN announced the major expansion of the Internet name space in Singapore. DotConnectAfrica’s application has been through enough hurdles that they have overcome. These include the change …

Is the ICANN GAC right? It depends on who you ask

What they’re saying about the GAC’s safeguard advice The ICANN New gTLD Board Committee request for comment on the GAC’s safeguard advice has closed, and the reply period will open soon. Here are some select comments, along with links to the full comments. “Instead of Guidebook advice, the GAC has offered public policy advice and …