Intellectual Property Alert: Introduction of New gLTDs: Trademark Owners and the Trademark Clearinghouse

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ("ICANN") recently announced that the newly established Trademark Clearinghouse will launch on March 26, 2013. The Trademark Clearinghouse will function as a centralized database of trademark information to facilitate the protection of trademark rights during the expansion of the generic Top Level Domains ("gTLD"), which are being introduced over the next few months. A gTLD is the term to the right of the "dot" in a URL, for example .com and .org. A process for creating new gTLDs (e.g. .car or .photo) began in 2012, and the Trademark Clearinghouse is intended to address the potential for registration of domain names in the new gTLDs that conflict with trademark owners' rights.