Sunrise Period: First bite for trademark holders
The Sunrise Period is a special period prior to the general launch of a registry where trademark owners can claim names that are the same or similar to their trademarks, before the registry opens to the general public.
Minds + Machines Sunrise Strategies
Like it or not, intellectual property protections are a part of life if you plan to start a new TLD. Designing a clear, simple, and appropriately-priced Sunrise period can make the difference between smooth sailing and disaster. A smooth Sunrise will make your Landrush launch that much simpler; mismanage it, and you’ll have a lot of bad publicity and suspicion right at the start of your new venture.
Not only do you have to design systems to handle Sunrise names, you have to make sure to communicate your policies to the intellectual property community. You will have to rely on the registrars (they know who the customers are) to explain your Sunrise policies, so make sure to communicate with registrars effectively.
Although big trademark owners are wealthy, many are very price-sensitive. Although the company may be large, the department budget may not be large. Remember also that your price will determine volume: many trademark holders will not register all their brand names, just the important ones. If your price is fair, they may go deeper into their list.
Be prepared to answer the “what if” questions that lawyers love. “What if” our trademark is owned by a holding company we set up in the Bahamas? “What if” our trademark is a design mark, and not a word mark? “What if” we have a common law trademark instead of a registered trademark? And so on, and so forth. There’s no way that you’re going to answer all these questions in advance, so you need to reach out to the intellectual property community and be prepared to set up seminars, conference calls, and other ways of keeping your lines of communication open.
Don’t forget that corporate registrants are likely to be substantial participants in your Landrush period as well. Johnson & Johnson, for example, may own the trademark “Pampers,” but they might also want to register “diapers,” “nappies,” and other generic words that go along with their brand, but which are not eligible for the Sunrise period. So it’s a good idea to keep these customers happy.
Finally, doing the Sunrise correctly can save you a lot of money in legal fees later. Both .INFO and .BIZ had to substantially rework their Sunrise periods after the fact, at great cost. .INFO didn’t screen trademarks, and (surprise!) got lots of bogus registrations, which they had to later invalidate. .BIZ was found by the courts to have conducted an illegal lottery, and they too had to re-do their Sunrise allocations.
The Intellectual Property Constituency at ICANN has put together a very useful booklet that describes the Sunrise periods (they call them “pre-launch Rights Protection Mechanisms”) of previous TLDs in some detail. You can download a copy of The Perfect Sunrise (PDF). If you are designing a Sunrise period, you would be very well served to study this in some detail.
Dealing with trademarks is a vexing problem throughout the life of a top-level domain registry. Putting together a Sunrise period that acknowledges the rights of trademark owners and provides them with a simple application process at a reasonable cost will set the tone for your future dealings with them. You can save yourself a lot of trouble down the road by doing your Sunrise period right.
Minds + Machines has lived through many Sunrise periods, both rough and smooth, and can help make sure yours has as few hiccups as possible.
