Spruson & Ferguson Trade Marks E-news. July 2007.

The sunrise launch of the .ASIA top-level domain will commence on 9 October 2007. The .ASIA domain has been proposed to represent the unified Asian market much like .eu has done for the European Union.

The initial launch will be phased to take into consideration intellectual property rights as well as the best interests of the rights of others in the community. The first stage will be the Sunrise Period for Governments and trademark owners, and then .ASIA will generally be available to eligible parties after the Sunrise Period.

Summary of the .ASIA Sunrise Process

3 main phases of Sunrise:

Sunrise 1 (SR1): Governmental Reserved Names
Sunrise 2 (SR2): Registered Trade Marks
Sunrise 3 (SR3): Registered Entity Names

Sunrise 2 (SR2) is further refined into 3 sub-phases:

SR2a: for registered trade marks which were filed before 16 March 2004 and have demonstrable use;
SR2b: for registered trade marks which were filed before 6 December 2006, but may not have yet been actively used.
SR2c: for trade mark owners to protect their brand beyond the term itself but also to register domain names that are relevant to their line of business (e.g. sprusons-intellectualproperty.asia).

The launch schedule for the Sunrise Process is:

9 October 2007 – 30 October 2007: for Sunrise 1 (SR1) and Sunrise 2 (SR2a)
13 November 2007 – 15 January 2008: for Sunrise 2 (SR2b and SR2c) and Sunrise 3 (SR3)
February/March 2008: Landrush (actual date yet to be confirmed).

Eligibility Criteria for Trade Mark Owners

Sunrise 2 (SR2a):

Trade Mark must correspond to the domain name applied for and must have been filed before 16 March 2004;
Trade Mark must be issued and valid upon domain name registration application;
Applicant must have demonstrable use of the trade mark (i.e. applicant must be able to provide evidence showing that the registered mark has been used by the applicant in the class for which the trade mark is registered in, and provide the date of first use of the mark); and
Registrant must be the owner, co-owner or assignee of the trade mark.

Sunrise 2 (SR2b):

Trade Mark must correspond to the domain name applied for and must have been filed before 6 December 2006;
Trade Mark must be issued and valid upon domain name registration application; and
Registrant must be owner, co-owner or assignee of the trade mark.

Sunrise 2 (SR2c):

Registrant must have already applied for a domain name based on their registered trade mark under SR2a or SR2b sub-phases.

In general, the domain name applied for must be a match with the registered trade mark claimed by the applicant. A partial match with the registered trade mark is not acceptable, with exceptions provided in SR2c (for extended protection of registered trade marks). For registered trade marks that contain spaces between textual elements, punctuations or special characters, these may be omitted or replaced by a hyphen. The resulting text will be considered an acceptable match.

During the sunrise phases and sub-phases, all applications to register a .ASIA domain name within the prescribed period will be considered to be received at the same time, rather than on a “first come, first served” basis. If the Registry receives only one qualified application for a domain name, it will be allocated to the applicant. If more than one application is received for a particular domain name, an auction will be held between the two or more qualified applicants.

For more information or assistance with protecting domain names under .ASIA, please contact Annette Freeman at annette.freeman@sprusons.com.au