The first 12 domain registries have been scheduled for the first special Sunrise Period mandated by ICANN for trademarks on the blocked collision lists (see TLD list at end of article).

A total of 328 new domain extensions have launched so far in 2014. Each one of these has its own unique collision list of names that were found to be already in use on private computer networks. Some of these lists have over 100,000 names. All of these registries were required to block these names from being allocated until a policy for their allocation could be developed by ICANN.

On November 7, ICANN published the requirements for how registries may allocate names from their individual Collision Lists. In particular, any blocked names that matched strings in the Trademark Clearinghouse would need to undergo a special registration period if their registration was blocked during their initial Sunrise Period (see announcement).

Calzone.org estimates that 168 new Registries that have already conducted Sunrise Periods in 2014 are impacted by this new policy. Each of these special Sunrise Periods will be published by the Calzone Calendar as they are announced by each Registry. Subscribers to Calzone will receive alerts as soon as each registry announces the dates of their Special Sunrise Period.

Trademark owners can determine if their trademark was blocked by reviewing the collision lists listed for each new gTLD registry agreement located on ICANN’s website.

Some registries, notably Donuts, decided to accept registrations anyway for these blocked names during their initial Sunrise Periods, even though the timing of the trademark’s release from the block list was uncertain. This turned out to be a smart move because these registries do not need to hold a special Sunrise Periods for their TLD.

But most every other Registry blocked Sunrise registrations for names on their collision lists. ICANN’s new policy now requires them to hold a special registration period for trademark owners before releasing these names for open registration.

ICANN has designed two special registration periods where multiple Sunrise Periods will occur in parallel.

1. December 10, 2014 – January 9, 2015, for Registries who opted-in by November 30, 2014

2. January 16, 2015 – February 15, 2015, for Registries who opt-in by January 6, 2015

Registries not opting to participate in one of the above Special Registration Periods must conduct their own exclusive registration period under the same requirements as the registry’s original Sunrise Period.

The first 12 Registries who have committed to the December 10 special Sunrise Period are all from Uniregistry and include the following registries:

.sexy
.tattoo
.link
.gift
.guitars
.pics
.photo
.christmas
.blackfriday
.hiphop
.audio
.juegos

As more Registries announce their plans, Calzone.org will publish the current list of special Sunrise Periods on the Calzone Calendar and to all Calzone subscribers.