Issue 118 - 15th May

Easygroup goes easy

The well publicised efforts of Stelios Haji-Ioannou's affiliated companies to own and defend the rights to all brands beginning with Easy took a step back this week when the entrepeneur backed off from pursuing Easyart in the courts, reportedly saying he was "too busy suing other people to bother". Easyart has thus avoided expensive litigation, although Haji-Ioannou has reportedly threatened to continue with the passing off action when he has more time.

The group has previously vigorously pursued companies and domain name owners operating businesses under names beginning with Easy, including Easyrealestate and Easyelectrical as covered previously in N3 Lite (http://www.n3lite.com/emailissue53.html). Having sometimes failed to win domain names back through dispute resolution arbitration, the litigation has relied on the UK legislation on "passing off" i.e. obtaining commercial benefit through the goodwill established by another commercial enterprise.

In a the Easyrealestate case, the high Court in England did offer some support for this argument by recognising that the easyGroup "get-up" has some distinctive features as follows:

1. The word "easy" followed by another word suggesting the service offered by that company e.g. easyCar.
2. The word "easy" all in lowercase letters.
3. The first letter of the word indicating the service is a capital letter (e.g. easyJet, not easyjet).
4. The colour scheme is white letters on an orange background, or orange on a white background.
   

.kids.us domain launch

The .kids.us domain is due to be launched on 4th of September this year. It is being marketed as 'a trusted online forum for children under 13'. As such there will be a strict control on the web content associated with a .kids.us domain. Content will be monitored by registry operator Neustar Inc. and an annual charge will be levied for this service.

This policy is in line with the Dot Kids Implementation and Efficiency Act of 2002 passed by the US government and can be viewed at http://www.kids.us/content_policy/content.html. Other restrictions which are as a direct result of this content policy are the prohibition of Two-way Interactive/Multi-User Interactive Services such as email and chatrooms and also hyperlinks directing users away from the .kids.us domain are not allowed.

Sunrise Period

As with most other recently launched domain names, there will be a Sunrise period allowing trademark and service mark holders to register and protect their brands prior to the September launch.

The .kids.us sunrise phase will begin on June 16th and finish on August 15th 2003.

To be eligible to apply for a .kids .us domain name (e.g. abcde.kids.us) during the sunrise period, a domain name applicant must own a United States trademark or service mark that was either registered or applied for with the USPTO prior to December 31, 2002. Foreign registered trademarks will NOT be allowed. This information will be checked thoroughly by the Registry prior to processing.

Registrations under the Sunrise phase are required to be registered for a minimum of 5 yrs.

US Nexus Requirement

Registrants must adhere to the usTLD Nexus Requirement similar to that introduced for the .US top-Level domain, this is available at http://www.kids.us/us_policy/ustld_nexus_requirements.pdf

Dispute Resolution

The existing policy for a .us domain (USDRP) will be enforced for the .kids.us domain, this can be viewed at http://www.nic.us/policies/docs/usdrp.pdf

Registration

Any NetNames clients or prospective clients who are interested in obtaining a .kids.us domain should register their interest by contacting us in the usual way or via the contacts listed on the NetNames website so that we can be as well prepared as possible to meet your requirements.

More information will be available shortly on our sister site www.gtld.com