Trademark owners who applied for .eu domain names during the Sunrise period should know within the next six weeks whether they have successfully obtained their desired domains.
In an interview with the INTA Daily News, Bart Lieben of Pricewaterhouse-Coopers said he hoped that all Sunrise applications based on registered trademarks and geographical indications would be validated by the end of June, while all other Sunrise applications would be finished by September. PwC has been contracted by the registry EURid to examine all Sunrise applications to see that they meet the prior right requirements.
The Sunrise period opened on December 7 last year, and gave owners of IP and related rights a four-month window to pre-register .eu domains. Owners of registered trademarks and geographical indications, as well as government bodies, could file in the first two months, and from February 7 the Sunrise was also open to owners of unregistered trademarks, company names and other rights recognized in EU member states. Applicants have 40 days in which to supply the required documentary evidence showing ownership of prior rights.
PwC last week validated the 100,000th application since .eu launched last year – a rate of about 1600 each day. A total of 240,000 applications were made under the two Sunrise periods, which finished on March 6 – but as some of these were for the same domain, they will not all need to be validated.
Validations for some countries, including Austria and Spain, have been completed subject to further cases arising from applications that are lined up for popular domains. PwC divided the validation work among staff in its European offices, with the UK, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland and Sweden receiving the most cases. To expedite the process, PwC is focusing on domains where there is more than one application in line.
EURid recently announced that names for which Sunrise applications have been rejected or expired will be made available to new applicants on June 7 at 11:00 am Brussels time.
The list of domain names that will be available will be published two weeks before, on May 24. But in a statement EURid denied that publishing the list would help cybersquatters: "By publishing a list, EURid wants to give everybody, including those parties who applied for names during Sunrise, a chance to see when the names will become available again."
Third parties can challenge the validator's decision on Sunrise domains using EURid's ADR procedure, which is run by the Czech Arbitration Court. Some 150 complaints have been filed so far but there has been only one decision – in which a registration for PST.eu based on a Benelux trademark was upheld.
Lieben, who has an opportunity to provide an explanation for each decision that is challenged, says there are already some trends apparent in complaints made. In particular, people are challenging .eu domains based on expedited trademark registrations filed in jurisdictions such as Benelux and Denmark.
These expedited registrations enabled applicants – including cybersquatters – to secure trademark rights to generic words or registered trademarks in unusual classes. "I do understand some people are a bit angry," says Lieben. But he insists that, under the EU Regulation setting up .eu, the validators had no choice but to accept evidence based on such expedited registrations. It will now be down to the ADR panelists to decide whether to support the validator's decisions.
Another controversial issue concerns .eu applications based on device marks, says Lieben: while most such applications are clear, about 2% are "borderline cases". There are also likely to be challenges over domains resembling country or official names, where these were not reserved by national governments. For example, a Dutch company registered usa.eu based on a Benelux registration for us&a.eu.
Following his validation experience, Lieben says: "Sunrise is a good idea, but it has been way too complex – for the applicants, the registrars and the registry." While the application process went smoothly, with no logistical hiccups, many problems have arisen over documentary evidence and how it is collected." An estimated 20% of applications include major mistakes in the evidence supplied, such as prior rights that do not match the application, or errors/omissions in the name of the applicant, or inadequate detail about licensees.
Lieben says: "It has been a very nice experiment, but there are lessons to be learned and things that can be improved." In particular, he says, the requirements for documentary evidence and the inclusion of unregistered rights as a basis for Sunrise applications raised problems in many applications. "Registrars need to know what IP is, how the system works, and what protection there is."
The next top-level domain to be launched is .mobi, which also has a Sunrise period for the telecoms industry and trademark owners. The industry period runs from May 22 to May 29 and the trademark Sunrise from June 12 to August 21. The landrush period starts on August 28.
