Trademark owners must be on the ball in new international domain changes

As of 16th November, it is now possible to register non-Latin domain names, using characters including Chinese, Cyrillic, Greek and Arabic. This development also affects certain languages such as Swedish, which use the Latin alphabet but have additional special characters, which have previously not been represented in domains. It will also be possible to mix character sets in a domain name, and for example have the domain name in non-Latin characters, with a .com extension.

This change will dramatically increase the number of available of domains containing trademark terms, and businesses will have to react quickly to ensure they protect those terms online. It is also likely that they will have to spend significantly to do, as prices for the new domains will be higher than they are at present. Trademark owners will have a sunrise period which will enable them to buy their trademarked domains before they are made available to all, however requirements such as holding the registered trademark in that specific country are likely to be applied.

This is a major step in the globalisation of the web and is expected to encourage more and more people to join the online community. However, it could cause a few headaches for marketers and trademark owners.

Read more at Search Engine Land 

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Gemma Houghton

Director of Marketing at Webcertain

Gemma has worked in international search marketing for over 15 years and is Director of Marketing at Webcertain, overseeing all marketing activities for the Group. She also organises and programmes Webcertain’s International Search Summit and International Social Summit, Barcelona-based conferences focusing on international and multilingual digital marketing. Gemma holds a Professional Diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing, a Diploma in Management and Leadership from the Chartered Management Institute, and a BA joint honours degree in French and German.

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