Since December 2013, many new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) have become available for registration such as .BIKE, .GURU and .CAREERS. These new TLDs begin their launch with a sunrise phase open to trademark holders only.
Trademarks can be registered with the Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH) during the sunrise period. The trademark holders are then allowed to apply to register the domain name associated with their trademark before registrations are available to the general public in General Availability (GA).
- Trademark claims
- Customizing the trademark claims notifications
- Resending the claims email
- Notices to trademark holders
Trademark claims
Durring GA, when anyone tries to register a domain name that matches a THMC registered trademark, they are warned that the name has a trademark registered against it. When continuing, the trademark holder is sent a notification letting them know. The trademark holder may choose to dispute the registration.
Note: Contact Privacy cannot be enabled for domains that match marks in the Clearinghouse.
This trademark claims notification service continues for 90 days after each TLD is made available to the general public.
Reseller Web Interface domain orders
Resellers are prompted with a message at the top of the registration form when submitting an order for a domain that might infringe on a registered mark. The message advises that the domain name is available but has a trademark claim.
Click Submit to place the order. A notice appears at the top of the page, letting you know that the order requires action by the registrant before it can be completed.
Reseller Control Panel domain orders
When submitting an order through the Reseller Control Panel (RCP) for a domain name that might infringe on a registered mark, the domain settings section of the order form displays has claim in the had trademark claim field. When there are no claims, the field displays no claim.
Submit the order for a dialogue box that tells you that there is a trademark claim on the domain name. Click OK to continue with the order.
Trademark Information email sent to registrants
When you submit an order for a domain name that matches a registered mark, the order is saved as pending, and an email is sent to the prospective registrant telling them that the domain name matches at least one trademark record at the TMCH. The message contains a link that they need to click if they still want to register the domain.
The link in the email takes them to a page that lists the records at the TMCH that match the domain name they want to register and warns they may or may not be entitled to register the name.
The registrant must click I agree to the terms to acknowledge that they are aware of the trademarks and that to the best of their knowledge, their use of the domain name will not infringe on the trademark.
Note: The registrant has 48 hours from when the order is submitted to respond; otherwise, the order is cancelled.
Customizing the trademark claims notifications
Some customers may be suspicious of clicking a link that takes them to an OpenSRS page instead of one owned by their reseller. To reassure your customers, you can set up a CNAME record to point to approve.domainadmin.com and then have your URL appear in the claims notification email. You can add custom text to the trademark notice page. You can specify the URLs where you want customers to be sent after they click one of the options in the trademark notice (either agreeing to the trademark notice terms or cancelling the order).
If you want to specify your custom hostname, you need to set up a CNAME record that points to approve.domainadmin.com. Allow propagation to complete before adding it to the claims notification.
Customizing the notification message
Resellers can customize the claims notification message to reflect your branding.
To customize the message details/body, update the trademark claims notification message from the Email messages tab under Messaging and confirmation in the RCP.
To customize the hostnames:
- Click Branding in the profile management section of the RWI.
- Scroll down to the section called customize claims notification hostname and URLs.
- Enter the URL in the accepted URL field to send customers when they click I agree to the terms on the Trademark Notice.
- Enter the URL to send customers when they click cancel on the Trademark Notice in the rejected URL field.
- Enter the hostname to appear in the claims notification email into the hostname field. Click Save.
Adding text to the trademark notice page
Text can be added to the trademark notice page by following these steps:
- Click Branding in the profile management section of the RWI.
- Scroll down to the section called customize claims notification page.
- Enter your text in the section - header and section - footer text boxes.
Note: Click Preview text changes to see what the page will look like with your added text.
Resending the claims email
If you need to resend the claims notification email to your customer, you can do so through the RWI or the RCP.
To resend the claims email from the RWI, display the order in progress and click the checkbox in the resend email column for that domain, followed by the Submit button. Alternatively, click the domain name to view the order, and then in the registrant claim/trademark notification section, click Resend request to the domain owner.
To resend the claims email from the RCP, display the pending order, and from the actions drop-down, choose Resend claim review email.
Notices to trademark holders
The TMCH contacts the affected trademark holders to let them know about the domain name registration when the registrant chooses to continue with the registration. Each trademark holder decides whether they want to take action and dispute the registration through a Uniform Domain-Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) claim or other legal means.
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