New IDNs Affect Trademark Protection

On November 16, 2009, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) began offering Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs). IDNs enable certain countries and territories that use non-Latin based languages to establish and use Internet domains in their native languages and scripts. This will make domain names more readily available to the sixty percent of Internet users who are non-English speaking.

The implications for trademark holders could be far-reaching. As Senniger Powers attorney Bill O'Neill says, "One of the ways trademark owners defend their brands is by reserving specific domain names. The use of IDNs will increase the number of domain names that a trademark holder might need to reserve in order to adequately protect its intellectual property. On the other hand, IDNs will allow more trademarks to have global exposure via domain names. IDNs could facilitate promoting and advertising trademarked brands to international Internet users, but it remains to be seen what the long term results of IDNs will be."

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Mr. O'Neill's practice is concentrated in the areas of trademark, copyright, and unfair competition law.