Russian domains and Russian trademarks
Quintessence of the post: purchase Russian domains before you file for the trademark.
Some time ago there was a topic at INTA mailing list regarding Russian domains and tradmark filing – the topic was started by yours truly, so I’d like to share with you that I’ve gathered in the discussion.
My question was as following:
We file trademark applications in Russia on behalf of foreign companies,
and it occurred to me that it might be wise to register a domain in Russia simultaneously – to guard the mark being filed against trademark crooks.
Say, a foreign company wants to register ABC mark in Russia. We file it, it passes formal examination and gets published at RUPTO site at publicly accessible applications page – but it’ll take another 13-14 months until it passes substantive examination.
Bad guys who monitor the site get the alert that ABC is being registered in Russia – and they immediately snap both ABC.RU and ABC.SU domains, and by the time ABC gets registered they already own the domains for a good year and had more than enough time to populate site with ABC relevant content – which would make it tough for trademark owner to demand domains back. Crooks might be willing to sell domains to trademark owner, mind you – $10 000 per domain would be sufficient for them.
How’s the scenario?
Do you think it makes sense to register domains along with regular trademark registration?
Answers:
Yes, of course. And more importantly, if the domain name is not available then you might consider finding a new name to trademark.
We always make sure the domain is available and purchase it before we file for the trademark, just to make sure your scenario below doesn’t arise. You can always drop the domain later if you end up not using it.
When my clients apply to register trademarks, I always suggest that they may wish to register the TRADEMARK.com, TRADEMARK.co.uk, TRADEMARK.ru etc. domain name of countries where they will do business, or anticipate doing business. As you know, in most countries the cost of domain name registration is paltry compared to the cost of wrestling the domain away from a cybersquatter.
In that situation, I’d definitely say it would be a good idea to register
the DNs. They are probably very cheap, compared with trade marks.
In my opinion, that is an excellent idea if someone intends to conduct
business in Russia and needs the domain names.
And today I heard this bit of news:
Icann’s launch of domain names in non-Latin alphabets was applauded by bloggers this week. On Class 46, Sasha Yelnick provides some guidance to how the rules will work in Russia, where registration of new domains will start on November 16 and will be phased in gradually before being open to everyone in March next year.
Russian domains WHOIS (in English)
You can purchase necessary Russian domains directly at RU Center.
See also:
Filed under: registration of trade marks in Russia
This is quite informative! I was actually searching some info about Russia’s Domains at http://www.aminn.org/ but, I could not find much info… Thank you for sharing this!