a Total of 91 new gTLD applications passed ICANN Initial Evaluation (IE)  including 8 applications which were previously passed over. This is the most new gTLD applications to pass IE in a single week and ICANN is now processing 100 new gTLD applications up from 50 per week as they promised would happen in June. This weeks more interesting new gTLD applications passing IE include two killer Geo’s .NYC and .Berlin; .budapest, a pseudo Geo of .Kiwi;  Google’s application for .youtube, Microsoft’s applications for .Microsoft and .Hotmail; the Republican’s parties application for .GOP. Some other .brand applications passed IE including .Neustar, .Monster, .Oldnavy; .Pioneer; .Genting (casino operators) .Lancia (Fiat); .Travelchannel; and Amazon’s application for .Kindle. ICANN has now gone through all new gTLD applications with a prioritization of  500 or less, with 436 having a decision. Here are the applications passing IE released by ICANN today:   <!-- table { }td { padding-top: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-left: 1px; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; vertical-align: bottom; border: medium none; white-space: nowrap; }.xl65 { vertical-align: middle; white-space: normal; }.xl66 { color: blue; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: middle; white-space: normal; } -->139 FISHING Top Level Domain Holdings Limited 171 CASA Top Level Domain Holdings Limited 192 GOP Republican State Leadership Committee, Inc. 262 LOVE Top Level Domain Holdings Limited 291 BOOK Top Level Domain Holdings Limited 331 KIWI DOT KIWI LIMITED 335 LLC Top Level Domain Holdings Limited 370 ISELECT iSelect Ltd 401 AUDIBLE Amazon EU S.à r.l. 402 WEDDING Wild Madison, LLC 403 CPA Top Level Domain Holdings Limited 404 EARTH Interlink Co., Ltd. 405 DELIVERY dot Delivery Limited 406 TICKETS Accent Media Limited 408 MSD MSD Registry Holdings, Inc. 409 NEUSTAR NeuStar, Inc. 411 SKI Wild Lake, LLC 412 LEASE Victor Trail, LLC 413 SALON Aesthetics Practitioners Advisory Network Pty Ltd 414 MONSTER Monster, Inc. 415 IMMO dotimmobilie GmbH 416 OLDNAVY The Gap, Inc. 417 PIN Amazon EU S.à r.l. 420 DESIGN NU DOT CO LLC 422 PETS John Island, LLC 423 BERLIN dotBERLIN GmbH & Co. KG 424 ECO Big Room Inc. 425 MOVISTAR Telefónica S.A. 426 ROCHER Ferrero Trading Lux S.A. 427 GRAPHICS Over Madison, LLC 428 ART .ART REGISTRY INC. 429 CAM AC Webconnecting Holding B.V. 430 HEALTH Afilias Limited 431 WIEN punkt.wien GmbH 432 TECHNOLOGY Auburn Falls 433 PIONEER Pioneer Corporation 434 LANCIA Fiat S.p.A. (“società per azioni”) 435 REVIEWS Extra Cover, LLC 437 GRAINGER Grainger Registry Services, LLC 438 NEWS Amazon EU S.à r.l. 439 DEALS Top Level Domain Holdings Limited 440 MOV Charleston Road Registry Inc. 441 SOLUTIONS Silver Cover, LLC 442 GENTING Resorts World Inc Pte. Ltd. 443 PIZZA Asiamix Digital Limited 444 SMILE Amazon EU S.à r.l.…

So you bought your TRAFFIC ticket for Las Vegas, hopefully as an ‘early bird.’ Your hotel room is booked, and your flight ticket is neatly tucked inside your passport or other form of id. Domain conferences, such as TRAFFIC, offer the opportunity to many newcomers and veterans alike, to intermix, exchange ideas and engage in [...]

John Berryhill, Esq, PHD says that the UDRP panel in the Ron Paul Domain name case got its right. The decision has garnered a lot of strong opinions, but Mr. Berryhill who has won more reverse domain name hijacking cases representing domain holders says the panel got it right and says that the UDRP panel that awarded HillaryClinton.com to Hillary Clinton got it wrong: In a comment left on a post on TheDomains.com to Mr.Berryhill says:   Hillary Clinton was only a wife of the politician…” IMHO, that case was wrongly decided.   But you don’t correct for a wrong decision by continuing to make wrong decisions. Mike, the difference between Brad Pitt and Ron Paul is that Brad Pitt is a subject of interest for purely commercial reasons.   Trademark law exists in tension with the First Amendment.  The First Amendment says, “say what you like”.  Trademark law says, “you can’t say certain things in the context of commercial speech.” Given that the First Amendment’s core purpose is to allow, first and foremost, unfettered political speech, the tension comes to the fore in what are almost always “blended” political and commercial contexts.  Often, nothing falls clearly on one side or the other of a bright line somewhere. A good case for exploring the topic involves former California Governor Schwarzenegger.  California, as may be expected, has a lot of protections around commercial rights of publicity.  But Mr. Schwarzenegger’s career had something of a dual character.  On the one hand, his rights in his name as a commercial brand were substantial.  On the other hand, as a political figure, he was fair game for commentary. So, what happened is that someone was selling action figures showing Mr. Schwarzenegger as “The Governator”.   The court had a really tough time trying to sort out whether this activity was primarily a political comment playing off the duality of his reputation as a politician and actor, or primarily a commercial enterprise free-riding on the value of the Terminator franchise.  The case is a good read, though. The UDRP is a bad fit for a lot of “right of publicity” claims in personal names as opposed to purely trademark claims.   Where the line is drawn depends, in a lot of cases, on the particular evidence and arguments in front of the panel.   One way to approach whether a name acts primarily as a “mark” is in the distinction between saying: 1.  “I saw a movie directed by Steven Spielberg.” 2.  “I saw a Steven Spielberg movie.” In statement 1, “Steven Spielberg” is used as a proper noun – the name of the person who directed the movie.…

John Berryhill, Esq, PHD says that the UDRP panel in the Ron Paul Domain name case got its right. The decision has garnered a lot of Strong opinions, but Mr. Berryhill who has won more reverse domain name hijacking cases representing domain holders says the panel got it right and says that the UDRP panel that awarded HillaryClinton.com to Hillary Clinton got it wrong: In a comment left on a post on TheDomains.com to Mr.Berryhill says:   Hillary Clinton was only a wife of the politician…” IMHO, that case was wrongly decided.   But you don’t correct for a wrong decision by continuing to make wrong decisions. Mike, the difference between Brad Pitt and Ron Paul is that Brad Pitt is a subject of interest for purely commercial reasons.   Trademark law exists in tension with the First Amendment.  The First Amendment says, “say what you like”.  Trademark law says, “you can’t say certain things in the context of commercial speech.” Given that the First Amendment’s core purpose is to allow, first and foremost, unfettered political speech, the tension comes to the fore in what are almost always “blended” political and commercial contexts.  Often, nothing falls clearly on one side or the other of a bright line somewhere. A good case for exploring the topic involves former California Governor Schwarzenegger.  California, as may be expected, has a lot of protections around commercial rights of publicity.  But Mr. Schwarzenegger’s career had something of a dual character.  On the one hand, his rights in his name as a commercial brand were substantial.  On the other hand, as a political figure, he was fair game for commentary. So, what happened is that someone was selling action figures showing Mr. Schwarzenegger as “The Governator”.   The court had a really tough time trying to sort out whether this activity was primarily a political comment playing off the duality of his reputation as a politician and actor, or primarily a commercial enterprise free-riding on the value of the Terminator franchise.  The case is a good read, though. The UDRP is a bad fit for a lot of “right of publicity” claims in personal names as opposed to purely trademark claims.   Where the line is drawn depends, in a lot of cases, on the particular evidence and arguments in front of the panel.   One way to approach whether a name acts primarily as a “mark” is in the distinction between saying: 1.  “I saw a movie directed by Steven Spielberg.” 2.  “I saw a Steven Spielberg movie.” In statement 1, “Steven Spielberg” is used as a proper noun – the name of the person who directed the movie.…

Demand Media throws five domains into private auction ring, but three are against competitors who won’t participate. Demand Media subsidiary United TLD has committed five of its applied-for top level domains to the first private domain auctions to be handled by Peter Cramton. The five domains are .fishing, .green, .mom, .rip, and .wow. Donuts recently [...]