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INTA will be hosting a free roundtable discussion on new gTLD’s in Munich next week. The main focus of the free seminar event will be legal rights objections for trademark owners. Brand owners and companies are encouraged to attend.

According to the International Trademark Association (INTA) more than 1,200 new gTLD applicants have registered with ICANN, submitting 2,000 new gTLD applications. Once ICANN reveals all the new gTLDs that have been applied for, there will be a temporary and nonrecurring objection period.

The legal rights objection period is expected to last approximately 7 months, starting in June 2012. The legal rights objection procedure may protect a trademark by denying any gTLDs that takes unfair advantage, unjustifiably impairs the distinctive character or creates confusion of a trademark.

WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) has been selected by ICANN to administer these dispute resolution procedures for all new gTLD strings. Erik Wilbers, the Director of the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center, will present this rights protection mechanism and will highlight at the event.

The roundtable discussion takes place on Thursday, June 21st, 2012 from 2:00 – 4:00 PM at the Sofitel Munich Bayerpost in Munich, Germany. Sebastian Ritze, Legal Manager at United Domains AG will be in charge of the introduction and moderation.

Registration is free, so if you have your afternoon open on that day, and you live in Germany, you don’t want to miss this event. Pr-registrations must be confirmed by Monday, June 18, 2012, at 2:00 pm UTC according to the INTA website. As of this writing, there were 46 confirmed attendees.

If you are wondering why Germany was selected to host this roundtable…? Well, probably because Germany has one of the largest and most active ccTLD aftermarket’s in the world. The .DE domain space has over 15 million registrations, and the German domain lifecycle has always been very active and locally oriented.

There are a handful of German based companies that are huge players in the global domaining world, such as Sedo and Key Systems. Neighboring Luxembourg is also a very popular corporate domain haven, for many domain businesses which choose to incorporate there, as well as domain industry investors from abroad who take advantage of the local intellectual property laws/regulations and tax benefits.

About The International Trademark Association

INTA is a not-for-profit membership association dedicated to the support and advancement of trademarks and related intellectual property as elements of fair and effective commerce.

The Association was founded in 1878 by 17 merchants and manufacturers who saw a need for an organization “to protect and promote the rights of trademark owners, to secure useful legislation and to give aid and encouragement to all efforts for the advancement and observance of trademark rights.”

Today, 5,900 trademark owners, professionals and academics from more than 190 countries make INTA a powerful network of powerful brands. Members of INTA find true value in the Association’s global trademark research, policy development, and education and training.

Headquartered in New York City, INTA also has offices in Shanghai, Brussels and Washington DC and representatives in Geneva and Mumbai.

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• Zoom.com And Trademark Rights Sold for $344,800 in Equity
• Sex.Sex Trademark Owner Searching For A Buyer
• MarkMonitor will host a new gTLD informational webinar on May 31st

The law enforcement recommendations for storing additional information related to domain name registrations that are supposed to make their way into ICANN’s new Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) might be against German data privacy laws, as Heise.de (German tech publication) reports. According to the response to Heise’s inquiry,  The Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information confirmed that the storage of domain name registration related data for two years would be illegal in Germany. The requests include to store address information, changes to any information, payment information, a full account history and a number of other items for a period of two years after the end of the contract.

European data protection advocates have already been fighting a long fight against the publication of whois data, leading to an introduction of a “Whois Procedure for Conflicts with National Laws” at ICANN in 2007.

Related posts:

• Through Thick & Thin: ICANN RFP for Registrar Data Escrow Services
• Iron Mountain to Provide Additional Audit Services for Registrar Data Deposits to ICANN
• Privacy Protection for .CA Domain Names Kills Business for Domainers
• .EU IDN Launch: German Language Domains Take Top Spots
• New York State Makes Their Own Domain Laws

As announced in a press release published today, Tucows (NYSE AMEX:TCX, TSX:TC) has purchased all the shares of German registrar EPAG for approximately US$2.5 Million (€1.5 Million to purchase the shares and the settlement of a working capital adjustment of €0.25 Million) through an all-cash transaction.

EPAG, based in Bonn, Germany, is an ICANN-accredited registrar with over 400,000 domains under management and is notable for offering over 200 Top Level Domains (TLDs). Tucows plans to continue serving EPAG customers and resellers via existing EPAG tools and will also integrate EPAG’s domain services into its own OpenSRS wholesale domain registration service.

“We believe combining the power of OpenSRS’ 12,000 active resellers in over 120 countries with EPAG’s ability to register such a broad range of TLDs will make OpenSRS unique in the industry,” said Tucows President & CEO Elliot Noss. “We expect that the deep expertise in registry integration we gain from EPAG will add invaluable bench-strength to our team as we prepare for ICANN’s roll-out of new TLDs.”

See the full press release after the jump.

TORONTO, Aug. 2, 2011 – Tucows Inc. (NYSE AMEX:TCX, TSX:TC), a global provider of domain names, email and other Internet services, announced today that it has acquired all the shares of EPAG Domainservices GmbH from QSC AG for approximately US$2.5 Million (€1.5 Million to purchase the shares and the settlement of a working capital adjustment of €0.25 Million) through an all-cash transaction.

EPAG, based in Bonn, Germany, is an ICANN-accredited registrar with over 400,000 domains under management and is notable for offering over 200 Top Level Domains (TLDs). Tucows plans to continue serving EPAG customers and resellers via existing EPAG tools and will also integrate EPAG’s domain services into its own OpenSRS wholesale domain registration service.

“We believe combining the power of OpenSRS’ 12,000 active resellers in over 120 countries with EPAG’s ability to register such a broad range of TLDs will make OpenSRS unique in the industry,” said Tucows President & CEO Elliot Noss. “We expect that the deep expertise in registry integration we gain from EPAG will add invaluable bench-strength to our team as we prepare for ICANN’s roll-out of new TLDs.”

This acquisition further strengthens OpenSRS’ position as a leader in wholesale domain registration and extends its commitment to providing broad TLD coverage to its resellers. Currently OpenSRS manages 11 million domains across 33 TLDs. With this acquisition OpenSRS will now manage over 11.5 million domain names and by the end of the year OpenSRS resellers will have access to over 200 TLDs.

“We congratulate Tucows on their acquisition of EPAG and are confident that this change of ownership helps to accomplish the strategic goals of both QSC AG and EPAG”, said Ingo Hattendorf, responsible for the transaction at QSC AG.

The acquisition of EPAG adds hundreds of new German-language resellers to the OpenSRS channel, providing Tucows access to a market to which it had relatively little exposure previously. Dave Woroch, Tucows’ EVP Sales noted, “We are happy to welcome EPAG customers to OpenSRS and assure them they will continue to get the same great services and support they have come to expect from the EPAG team. Over time we look forward to providing additional features and services that can help EPAG customers grow their businesses.”

About QSC AG

QSC AG, Cologne, is a service provider for voice and data communication, as well as ICT services. Established in 1997, the company has been focusing on small and mid-size business customers. QSC AG is the first provider to operate an Open Access platform in Germany, which unites a wide range of broadband technologies to offer national and international site networking, including Managed Services. QSC AG additionally supplies its customers and distribution partners with a comprehensive product portfolio that can be modularly adapted to every need. QSC AG was the first provider in Germany to build its own Next Generation Network (NGN), and therefore enjoys long years of experience in connection with IP-based telephony solutions, in particular. QSC AG has been listed on the TecDAX index since 2004. The QSC AG group employs a workforce of some 1,300 people.

About Tucows

Tucows is a global Internet services company. OpenSRS manages over eleven million domain names and millions of email boxes through a reseller network of over 11,000 web hosts and ISPs. Hover is the easiest way for individuals and small businesses to manage their domain names and email addresses. YummyNames owns premium domain names that generate revenue through advertising or resale. Butterscotch.com is an online video network building on the foundation of Tucows Downloads.

Albeit with a very late start, we‘re were live blogging the auction results of the Domainvermarkter Forum Live domain auction held in Munich, Germany by Moniker/Snapnames today. As always we do not guarantee the accuracy of these results.

The auction sold 107 domains out of 157 for a total of 75,290 Euro (appx. $96,700 USD). Notable sales include tunen.de for 10,000 EUR (tuning in German, appx. $12,850 USD), qe.de for 5,000 EUR (appx.$6,4000 USD ) and Militär.de (military in German) for the same amount.

See the full unofficial results after the jump.

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