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Domain Name Registrants, Domain Name Registrars, Domain Name Registry, New gTLDs

Donuts Offers Better Protection For Trademark Owners Across All Its gTLDs ‘Cheaply’

Donuts is rolling out an expanded service allowing trademark owners to protect their trademarks and related terms across all of Donuts’ new generic top level domains (gTLDs) at a fraction of what it would cost to defensively register the same terms. The upgraded service commences 1 October and runs for three months.The service, DPML Plus, seeks to build on its legacy Domains Protected Marks List (DPML) programme. The popular DPML service is already employed by thousands of subscribers, including several Fortune 500 companies such as Target, Verizon, Costco, Apple, HP, Microsoft and Amazon.Donuts operates 195 new gTLDs that account for 1.806 million domain name registrations, or 7.41 percent of all new gTLD domains registered. The largest of Donuts’ new gTLDs is .guru with 60,400 registrations followed by .email, .today and .solutions, all of which have over 50,000 registrations.DPML Plus takes their brand protection one step further enhancing DPML by allowing brand owners to widen protections, including, for the first time, common misspellings of their marks. Donuts explain that brand owners will also be able to:

  • Block their marks and mark-related terms from registration for an initial 10-year period.
  • Block one exact match term and three additional strings (legacy DPML covers one string) that contain a mark or common misspellings of the mark (further “contains” or misspelled terms beyond these three strings are available to block for an additional fee).
  • Also for the first time, block a mark in premium second-level domains across all Donuts’ gTLDs.

DPML Plus blocks are not subject to overrides by other parties with the same trademark. DPML Plus subscribers may submit unlimited overrides of their own blocked terms (for no wholesale override fee) if they elect to register and use their previously blocked terms.Registration for DPML Plus will open 1 October and close 31 December 2016. The company’s suggested retail price for DPML Plus is $9,999. DPML applications may be submitted only through a registrar authorised by Donuts to provide the service.”The DPML program has provided a cost-effective way for owners of the world’s most recognisable brands to protect their trademarks across a significant portion of the new Internet landscape,” said Richard Tindal, Donuts co-founder and Chief Operating Officer. “The DPML Plus promotional offering provides a truly unique opportunity for us to partner with brand owners to ensure that usage of new domain extensions is correctly tailored to their precise needs.”Once the DPML Plus programme ends, the price of its legacy DPML service will be increased from 1 January 2017 to better align the service’s benefits with its marketplace value. Existing DPML subscribers can renew their subscriptions at current pricing before 1 January.The DPML programme was developed in consultation with intellectual property experts and, say Donuts, has been extremely well received by the trademark community. DPML works by “blocking” a string of characters from registration at the second level (the characters before the dot). The string may be an exact match of the mark or may contain the mark within it (the mark may be at the beginning, end or anywhere in the applied-for label, so long as it is contiguous).