EUIPO and EURid, the .eu, .ею and .ευ TLD register are working to strengthen their cooperation. The aim of both organizations is to facilitate the activities of applicants and owners of trademarks and domain names, with a focus on small and medium enterprises.
New procedures will help users of the EU intellectual property system to obtain both trademark and domain names protection. In this way, start-ups will be able to protect the rights to their trademarks from the very beginning of their existence.
Applicants for EU trademark registration are currently being consulted on whether their trademark is available as a .eu domain name at the end of the online application process at EUIPO. In addition, applicants and proprietors of EU trademarks may set up notifications in case a .eu domain name corresponding to their trademark is registered.
Under a new work program, EUIPO and EURid will explore the possibility of applying a reciprocal process when registering a .eu domain name, which will allow owners to see if a trademark with a similar name is available in the EUIPO database.
Furthermore, the two organizations will work on a joint survey which to show whether users first register a trademark or domain name. The possibility of creating a tool for users to receive information about the availability of desired terms, both as a trademark and as a domain name, will also be investigated.
EURid information on domain names will be integrated into a planned chatbot for SMEs, as well as in various guides and webinars to further direct SMEs towards an integrated trademark protection scheme.
