.cm Domain Registration: Sunrise Period For Trademark Owners Begins June 15

Trademark Infringement Alert:  .cm is the Top Level Domain for Cameroon and unfortunately a target for cybersquatters and typosquatters due to “cm” being a common typographical error for the most popular TLD ”com”. NetCom is the registry for the .cm domain names. 

Trademark owners need to take advantage of the short 'sunrise' period to register their brands and trademarks before registration opens up to third parties, some of who will be looking to cybersquat and typosquat on trademarks.

A good example is www.espn.cm, which directs to an affiliate page (managed by Agoga.com).  Our trademark and domain name attorneys are recommending that all of our clients who own registered trademarks register the .cm version of their marks during the sunrise period to protect themselves from infringement.

.cm will is supposed to be launched in 3 phases.

Phase 1 - 15 June 2009 - 14 July 2009 - reserved for trademark holders.
Phase 2 - 15 July 2009 - 31 July 2009 - land-rush - domain names will be made available at a premium price.
Phase 3 - 1 August 2009 - released to the general public.

Further rules will be forthcoming from netCom soon.  For more information about how to protect your domains from being cybersquatted on the .cm ccTLD, contact one of our brand protection attorneys. 

The sunrise rules from 2008 (which did not occur) are found below.

Sunrise applications. All applications must be submitted by an accredited registrar of Netcom . The receipt of every sunrise application will be confirmed by Netcom electronically stating the date and time of receipt of the sunrise application, the domain name(s) applied for and name and email address of the applicant. This information will be published.
Sunrise applicants will be required to warrant that they have the applicable rights to the domain name applied for [and to supply an electronic copy of the trademark registration certificate corresponding to the name applied for.] [Another possible variant: …. and to submit the following information regarding the corresponding trademark: (i) trademark number; (ii) date of trademark application; (iii) date of trademark registration; (iv) wording of the trademark; and (v) country or countries for which the trademark was registered.]
Where the applicant is a licensee [a copy of the licensing agreement with the holder of the trademark must also be provided.] [Another possible variant: ....the name and residence address/corporate seat of the licensor must also be provided].

All sunrise applications must be in English. [A copy of the trademark registration certificate and/or the license agreement may be in their original language, with English translation provided only upon an express request of Netcom or its validation agent.]

The applicant must correspond to the holder or licensee of the trademark on which the sunrise application is based. The applicants have a right to correct any mistakes in their applications before the expiry of the sunrise period. Any submission of such corrections must be made electronically by the respective registrar which filed the sunrise application(s) to Netcom. Netcom or its validation agent has a right but not obligation to allow correction of evident errors in sunrise application(s) even after the expiry of the sunrise period.
Validation. At the end of the sunrise period, sunrises applications will be validated by Netcom or its validation agent. Netcom or its validation agent has a right to
request submission of additional documentation from the applicants, evidencing their rights in the corresponding trademark(s).

The earliest or the only valid sunrise application for a name [supported by the correct documentation] will be provisionally registered to that applicant upon validation.

Details of all domain names provisionally registered during the sunrise period will then be published on NETCOM web site for a challenge period of 3 weeks. During this time any party with rights to the name who believe that the applicant to whom a name has been provisionally awarded has infringed those rights or that the infringement of these Sunrise Rules occurred may register a challenge to that award. During this period, all domain names provisionally registered will be unavailable for use.
After the three week challenge period those names for which no challenge was received will be formally registered and available for use.

Challenge procedure. Any party may file the challenge by email sent to the following email address:

before the expiry of the challenge period. The challenge must contain (i) the name and contact details of the challenging party, (ii) the disputed domain name(s), (iii) description of rights relied upon by the challenging party, (iv) factual and legal grounds explaining and documenting why the registration of the disputed domain name(s) to the provisional holder would infringe legal rights of the challenging party or why these Sunrise Rules were infringed and (v) statement of the challenging party accepting these Sunrise Rules.

Netcom will exercise its best efforts to decide each challenge within [7] days from its receipt. If Netcom decides in favour of the challenging party, the provisional registration of the disputed domain name(s) will be cancelled and the domain names will be provisionally registered to the next applicant in the queue. Another three week challenge period will start running for each new provisional registration. If Netcom decides in favour of the provisional holder, the provisional registration will continue till the expiry of the original challenge period and another challenge can be filed within this time period.
Limitation of liability.