Tim Brown

Domain Names and Online Brand Protection

Tag: IDN

First IDN Disputes Start to Emerge

27 November 2003 /

The first disputes relating to Internationalised Domain Names – ones which allow web users to register domain with non-Latin characters – have started to emerge, with Chinese film company Golden Harvest winning a dispute over a domain made up of the Chinese characters corresponding to its name.

The dispute was brought by Golden Harvest after the registrant – an alleged domain speculator – bought the domain GoldenHarvest.com as represented in both traditional and simplified Chinese character sets. During 2001, the Respondent contacted Golden Harvest to try and broker a deal to sell the domains to the film company for $30,000 USD.

The Complainant, however, argued that as they had been using “Golden Harvest” since it was featured in their 1970 film “The Angry River” they had developed considerable goodwill in the name and that the registrant had bought the domains to profit from this goodwill.

Concluding that the domains had been registered in bad faith and finding in Golden Harvest’s favour, the panellist commented:

…the Respondent obviously registered the disputed domain names primarily for the purpose of selling to the Complainants or to a competitor of the Complainants, for valuable consideration in excess of the Respondent’s documented out-of-pocket costs directly related to the domain names.

While the case was fairly straightforward in terms of UDRP disputes, it does show that wrangles involving IDNs are starting to become an issue to trade mark holders. It remains to be seen whether the consequences of IDNs to businesses will be as severe as some industry commentators – such as the French country code operator – have predicted.

But it is clear that businesses with an international presence must keep a close eye on IDN developments to ensure their intellectual property rights are properly protected.

Germany, Switzerland & Austria to Introduce IDNs

25 November 2003 /

As of 1 March next year the Müllers, Jägers and Schröders of the world will no longer have to make do with transcribing their names as mueller.de, jaeger.de or schroeder.de if they want to use them for Internet domains.

DENIC, SWITCH and nic.at, the registries for domains in Germany, Switzerland/Liechtenstein and Austria, are to join forces to expand their domain name systems to allow for a total of 92 additional new characters – including umlauts, as well as French characters such as é or the Danish ø.

Currently, anyone wishing to register a domain is still restricted to the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, the digits 0-9 and hyphens. In numerous cases (such in the examples of Schröder, Müller or Jäger), these restrictions clearly do not allow for domains to appear in their correct form. However, the new system will increase the number of possible characters by 92 for Germany and Austria and by 31 for Switzerland, allowing for a whole new range of possibilities for businesses and individuals to choose from.

However, there remains one character that German-speaking Internet users will have to do without in future: ß. According to international language guidelines, this is equivalent to ss – and so it would not be possible to distinguish between the domains straße.de and strasse.de.

While there are obvious benefits to German speakers by being able to register domains with umlauts and other characters, IDNs (Internationalised Domain Names) do have their downside, especially to trade mark holders. For example, the domain “müller.de” could be registered by a domain squatter or a speculator to divert traffic from a pre-existing domain name “muller.de”. For most businesses, it is simply uneconomical and impractical to register every variation of a trade mark. So domain watching services and monitoring of domain spaces to check for infringing registrations will become of critical importance.

Businesses with an on-line presence will have to keep a close eye on the development of new technologies such as IDN’s to ensure their intellectual property rights are suitably protected wherever they are represented in the world. Demys will, of course, keep you posted.

Afilias Introduces Umlauts to .info

19 September 2003 /

Afilias – the registrar for .info generic top level domains – has announced that it is to implement an ICANN-standards compliant internationalised domain name (IDN) solution. This will allow web users to register domains using German script umlaut characters- ä ö and ü.

“This is an important step in the evolution of the Internet as a true global medium for communication. .info’s success in Germany has been extraordinary and illustrates the demand for domain names that have international meaning,” said Philipp Grabensee, Chairman of Afilias’ Board of Directors located in Düsseldorf, Germany.

“We believe that German script registrations will be popular given that .info has over a quarter of a million domains already registered in Germany, with at least 10% of those containing the letter combinations ae, oe, and ue, which are the widely used alternatives to registering an umlaut character on the Web.”

The umlaut has the effect of adding an “e” after the vowels a, o and u. The letter combinations ae, oe, and ue are generally substituted for ä, ö, and ü in e-mail and other forms of communication where umlauts are not available. There are currently thousands of words in the German language using umlauts previously unavailable to registrants for use in web sites or e-mail.

While there are obvious benefits to German speakers by being able to register domains with umlauts, IDNs have proven controversial. Earlier this year the French naming authority, AFNIC, expressed its concern over the introductions of IDNs, noting that they could give rise to a flood of domain name registrations that might be harmful to trademark holders.

AFNIC pointed out that there could be conflicts between registrants of conventional domains and new IDNs – citing the example of “café.fr” diverting traffic from a pre-existing domain name “cafe.fr”. Obviously similar issues could arise with the new German IDNs.

Given that this is first time a major generic top level domain registrar has introduced IDNs it remains to be seen whether they will be of real benefit to the Internet community, or whether they will be a new thorn in the side for trade mark holders defending their rights against a whole new breed of domain squatter. Demys will keep you posted.

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