Heart in the mouth for The Vatican

Article  \  22 Dec 2011

Earlier this year our clients had an opportunity to block their trade marks from registration in the .xxx space during the ICM registry's Sunrise B period.

.xxx is the new adult entertainment domain space. Many brand owners were concerned about their brands being used in this market and used a pre-registration blocking process to stop this from happening.

The value in blocking trade marks from registration as .xxx domain names is exemplified in recent news reports that the domain name vatican.xxx has been purchased by a buyer unknown to The Vatican. It seems that the Vatican didn't take steps to block Vatican.xxx from being registered as an adult entertainment website. They are also reluctant to be listed as the owner of Vatican.xxx.

Lucky for the Vatican, the registry running the .xxx domain took the pre-emptive step of blocking a number of names from being used as .xxx addresses at the outset. Vatican.xxx seems to be one of these.

A 'heart in the mouth' moment for The Vatican, their reaction certainly reconfirms the value in successfully blocking important trade marks during "Sunrise B".