Trademark Clearinghouse passes 5,000 registrations

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Trademark Clearinghouse passes 5,000 registrations

Cosmetics and pharmaceutical companies have not yet made extensive use of Icann’s Trademark Clearinghouse, which can help to protect brands from cybersquatting in the new gTLDs

According to information published today, there have so far been 5,000 registrations in the Clearinghouse.

But only 1% of marks relate to cosmetics, and just 0.8% cover pharmaceutical and medical products.

Less than 10% of the marks in the Clearinghouse so far relate to clothing and footwear, while 23% are for scientific or teaching apparatus, 22% for advertising or business management and 16% relate to sporting equipment.

The breakdown of marks is based on the Nice classification.

The US is the biggest source of Clearinghouse applications, making up 44%. France accounts for 10%, the UK for 7% and Germany for 4%.

Almost two-third of the records are registered for only one year.

Icann is holding a public meeting in Durban, South Africa this week at which further discussions on the gTLD rollout and other IP protection mechanisms are taking place.

Yesterday, Icann signed four new gTLD agreements, all of them with operators of TLDs in non-western scripts.

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