Telnic sets launch date for .tel domains

Stuart Corner
Sunday, 22 June 2008 06:21

Business IT - Networking

Take for example well known network equipment manufacturer Juniper Networks which advertises its main Internet address as www.juniper.net. If it wants Juniper.tel it might have to make sure it gets in before Australian company Juniper Holdings No. 4 Pty Ltd of Mooloolaba in Queensland which owns two trademarks with the name Juniper, Nos 915245  and 915265 , but with different visual representations.

Trademark related .tel domain names are, however, subject to the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP ), which establishes a procedure for resolving many trademark disputes relating to domain names.

UK based Telnic has had a long and difficult road to get .tel to this stage. It finally gained ICANN approval for .tel in May 2006 , six years after its initial application. Telnic's was one of two proposals for .Tel submitted to ICANN in 2000, and both were initially rejected. Over the following several years Telnic worked to satisfy ICANN's requirements. The other proposal came from US company Pulver.com. The planned opening of Sunrise is now a year behind the schedule announced in March 2007.