Please see details listed on the .info Roll Out section.

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The first stage of the .info roll out is the Sunrise period. It provides trademark owners the ability to register their marks in the .info domain before the general public in order to protect their intellectual property. Domains registered during the Sunrise period must include the following information.

1. The ASCII characters composing the trademark.
2. The date the trademark was issued.
3. The country in which the trademark was registered.
4. The trademark number.

IP owners will be able to protect their trade and service marks by registering their corresponding domain names during the Sunrise period.

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Those wishing to reserve their marks in the .info domain during the Sunrise Period must own a current trademark or service mark having national effect prior to October 2, 2000. Domain requests must also be for ASCII characters identical to the textual or word elements of the mark only, however, hyphens may be used between spaces within a registered mark.

Sunrise registrations will only be accepted for terms of at least five years and will be processed after registration fees are paid in full. The domain names will be locked at the registry level for approximately 180 days following the last day of the Sunrise Period.

Return to Intellectual Property Owners FAQs

Owners of any current trademark or service mark that have national effect prior to October 2, 2000 are eligible to register a domain name during the Sunrise period. The domain name must be identical to the textual elements of the trademark or service mark.

The domain name must conform to standard rules for domain names.

• Only characters in the range A to Z, 0 to 9 and hyphen are allowed
• Names can not begin or end with a hyphen
• The maximum length is 63 characters (exclusive of the .info portion)

Sunrise Period FAQs

Mintac.com will accept domain application through Aug 27, 2001. You are reminded to make Sunrise domains registration as soon as possible.

Sunrise Period FAQs

The Sunrise period is scheduled to begin July 25, 2001 through Aug 27, 2001. For now, Our Domain Registration System is able registrants to make Sunrise domains, please check out .info Domain Registration System.

Sunrise Period FAQs

Afilias Registry will lock domain names registered during the Sunrise period at the registry level for a period of approximately 180 days following the end of the Sunrise period. The only exceptions are for transfers required as a result of: a successful challenge, a decision in a UDRP administrative proceeding, or an order from any court of competent jurisdiction. In addition, names subject to one or more pending challenges may not be transferred.

Sunrise Period FAQs

Trademark and service mark holders interested in registering their domains during the Sunrise Period can send their requests to Mintac.com

In addition to the regular contact and name server information required for normal domain name registrations, domains registered during the Sunrise period must also include the following trademark/service mark information:

1. The ASCII characters composing the trademark or service mark.
2. The date the trademark/service mark was issued.
3. The country where the trademark was registered.
4. The trademark/service mark number.

Registrants submitting names to Mintac.com

Mintac.com will only be accepting requests during the sunrise period on a first come, first served basis.

Mintac.com submitting to Afilias

In the event that separate applicants submit registration requests for identical trademarks, the first request (as selected after a randomization process), to be processed by the registry that meets the criteria for a Sunrise registration will be awarded the domain name.

Sunrise Period FAQs

Sunrise domains will only be accepted for a registration term of a minimum of five years and up to a maximum of ten years.

Sunrise Period FAQs

Registration is $30 USD/domain/ year. However, Afilias requires the minimum registration to be five years in the Sunrise period. The total registration fee for 5 years is US$150.

Sunrise Period FAQs

Registrants MUST make payment in full amount when they submit pre-registrations to Mintac.com. If the domain registration is unsuccessful, we will credit all amount you paid to your account, then you can make another registration by the amount that deposited in your account, or will be refunded at your cost (if any bank surcharges incurred).

Sunrise Period FAQs

Domains registered during the Sunrise period will be placed "on hold" and will not be resolvable in the DNS. Afilias anounced on June 20, 2001 that Sunrise domains will be resolvable from Sept 19, 2001. Afilias has adopted this policy in order to ensure the most fair and equitable process and allow all registrations in the .info domain to resolve at the same time.

Sunrise Period FAQs

Disputes for domains registered during the Sunrise period will be resolved according to the Sunrise Challenge process. Please see the Sunrise Challenge FAQs for additional details.

Sunrise Period FAQs

As .info is the only new unrestricted top-level domain, anyone may register a domain name for any purpose.

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Registration fees are US$30 per domain per year. The minimum initial registration in the Start-Up period is two years. The total amount of registration fees for two years in the Start-Up period will be US$60.

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ICANN has sanctioned that all single-character labels and two-character labels be initially reserved. Therefore registrants may not register domains with a single character (eg. www.b.info) or two-character labels (eg. www.me.info).

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The Start-Up period has scheduled from Sept 12, 2001 to last for 18 days.

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Please check out .info Domain Registration System to submit Start-Up requests.

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Domain names registered during the Start-Up period must be registered for a minimum of two years and up to a maximum of 10 years.

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Domain registrations submitted during the Start-Up period will be processed with the same randomization process used during the Sunrise period. Domains will be expected to be resolvable very soon after the completion of domain name selection.

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Disputes for domains registered during the Start-Up period may be settled according to the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) or through the regular court system.

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As .info is the only new unrestricted top-level domain, anyone may register a domain name for any purpose.

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Afilias is currently in the process of finalizing its Registry Agreement with ICANN. Afilias estimates that the start of the Post-Start-Up period to begin two days after the end of the Start-Up period. The Start-Up period will ends on Sep 29, 2001.

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The Post-Start-Up period will continue indefinitely.

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Domains can be transferred during the Post-Start-Up period as long as the status of the domain permits transfers.

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You should check out .info Domain Registration System to register your .info domains during the Post-Start-Up period. Registrants will allow for real-time registration on a first-come, first-served basis.

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Domain names registered during the Post-Start-Up period must be registered for a minimum of two years and up to a maximum of 10 years.

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Domains registered during the Post-Start-Up period are expected to be resolvable approximately five minutes after the registration.

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Disputes for domains registered during the Post-Start-Up period may be settled according to the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) or through the regular court system.

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First Round:

The submission period for the first round is scheduled to last 7 days. At the end of 7 days, the submitted domains will be randomized and the registry will begin processing registrations. This processing is estimated to last 3 days (1 day for processing and 2 days for technical monitoring of the system).

Second Round:

During the 3 day processing period for the first round, registrars will submit additional registration requests to their individual queues. After the third day, Afilias will randomize and process registrations. The processing is estimated to last 2 days (1 day for processing and 1 day for technical monitoring of the system).

Third Round:

While the second round of registrations are being processed, registrars may submit additional registration requests to their individual queues, and these requests will be processed in the same manner as the first and second rounds. The processing of the third round is estimated to last 2 days (1 day for processing and 1 day for technical monitoring of the system).

Fourth and Fifth Rounds:

The fourth and fifth rounds will be collected and processed in the same manner as the third round.

After the fifth round, Afilias anticipates that the volume of registration requests will allow the registry to move to a real-time registration process.

Once the registry begins to process the final round, Afilias will not accept additional registration requests for two days. After such two days, when the final round of domain registrations has been processed, Afilias will commence processing registrations in real time.

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Afilias will process domain name requests using a round robin mechanism such that no more than one registration request per round will be processed for any registrar, whether such registration request is accepted or not, so long as more than one registrar has requests remaining in its queue. A domain name request will be considered successful if: (i) the submitting registrar has not already submitted a request in that round; (ii) the domain name is available; and (iii) the registrar has sufficient funds in its account for the registration. This round robin process will continue until all domain name requests in each individual queue have been processed.

No real time registrations will be processed during the round robin rotation, so, while these initial queues are processed, registrars will be submitting new registrations to new individual database queues. Once the initial queues have been processed, the registry will begin processing the next queues and the process will repeat.

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The dispute resolution process to be used for domains registered during the Sunrise period is called the Sunrise Challenge process. Dispute resolution services during this period of time will be exclusively provided by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Domains registered during the Start-Up and Post-Start-Up periods will use ICANN's UDRP process.

If the domain name that matches your trade or service mark was registered by another party during the Sunrise period, you can apply for a dispute against the registrant by asserting your challenge during a special Sunrise Challenge period. The Sunrise Challenge period will begin at the end of the Sunrise period and continue for 120 days.

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A third party may challenge a domain registered during the Sunrise period on the following basis:

• The registrant does not own a current intellectual property registration.
• The valid and enforceable intellectual property registration was not of national effect.
• The second level portion of the domain name is not identical to the intellectual property registration.
• The intellectual property registration was not issued prior to October 2, 2000.

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Upon assertion, each challenge will be subject to a fee of $295 US dollars.

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Parties may assert a challenge against a Sunrise domain at any time during the Sunrise Challenge Process, a period of up to 120 days following the conclusion of the Sunrise Period. After the Sunrise Challenge period, parties disputing the validity of a Sunrise domain must utilize ICANN's UDRP or the regular court system.

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The exact rules and regulations of the Sunrise Challenge process is currently being developed by WIPO. Please check back here at a later date for the latest information.

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