Of 15 October 2008
Regarding Use of Mark Elements P, ©, ®, ™ in Domain Name
The .UA Domain Administrator, being guided by:
- Civil Code of Ukraine;
- Law of Ukraine “On Protection of Rights in Trademarks and Service Marks” of 15 December 1993, with revisions and addenda;
- standard st. 60 of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), recommendation regarding the bibliographical data related to marks; and
- .UA Domain Policy
taking into account that:
- the use of Mark is recognized as its application on the Internet;
- from time to time, elements P, ©, ®, ™ are added in superscript to the Mark image at its registration; and
whereas:
- A symbol registered as Mark may contain elements, which are not protected and listed under code (526) when publishing the Mark registration data. The relevant code (526) shall also be supplied in the bibliographical data of the Ukraine’s Mark Certificate, where there are unprotected Mark elements available.
- According to Clause 3.2 of the .UA Domain Policy, the second-level private domain names in the .UA domain shall only be delegated if spelling of the respective domain name in full or of its second-level component (before character “.”, but exclusive of this character) coincides with the Mark, the rights of whose use in Ukraine are held by the respective registrant. The term “Mark” according to Clause 1.6 of the .UA Domain Policy means a word mark for goods and services with regard to which a Trademark or Service Mark Certificate of Ukraine is issued by the central executive authority dealing with the issues of legal protection of intellectual property, or such mark that has obtained legal protection in the territory of Ukraine pursuant to the Arrangement of Madrid Concerning the International Registration of Trademarks or, if such a registered trademark or service mark consists of text and other symbols, it means its word part, which in itself is an object of legal protection.
- According to Clause 3.3 of the .UA Domain Policy, if the Mark indicated in Clause 3.2 of the .UA Domain Policy contains a word part, which is not an object of legal protection, the holder of rights to use of such Mark in the territory of Ukraine could be delegated a second-level private domain name, whose spelling coincides with the Mark part, which is an object of legal protection.
- According to Clause 3.6 of the .UA Domain Policy, reproduction in a domain name of special symbols, which are part of the Mark but may not be included into a domain name pursuant to effective technical standards, is recommended in one of the two ways at the registrant's own discretion:
- by way of substitution of special symbols for their symbolic names in English (for example, "&" - "and", "/" - "slash", "." - "dot", "@" - "at" etc.), which at the registrant's request may also be marked out with the "-" characters on both sides (for example, "&" - ""and-"). Symbols " " (space) and "_" (underline) may be substituted for the "-" symbol;
- by way of deletion of special symbols from the Mark's representation in the form of a domain name, without substituting them;
represents as follows:
- As the respective elements P, ©, ®, ™ are not included in the list of special symbols pursuant to the .UA Domain Policy;
- As the scope of legal protection of the Mark is determined by Mark’s image and the list of goods and services pursuant to Clause 4, Article 5 of the Law of Ukraine “On Protection of Rights in Trademarks and Service Marks”;
- The bibliographic data of the Trademark Certificate of Ukraine contain no elements, which are unprotected (such elements to be presented under code (526) in the bibliographic data of the Trademark Certificate of Ukraine according to the standard st.60 WIPO):
this prevents the Administrator from excluding the part of the designation registered as Mark when delegating a second-level private domain name (up to symbol ".", but exclusive of this symbol), whose spelling coincides with the Mark, the rights to whose use in the territory of Ukraine are held by the respective registrant.
The Mark element, which reproduces the elements P, ©, ®, shall be added to the domain name, except the element “O”, which may not be included in the domain name according to the effective technical standards.
The letters п, я, R, TM, which are part of the Mark, shall be added to the domain name as letters separated from the main part of the Mark by the “space” symbol.
According to Subclauses 3.6.1 and 3.6.2 of the .UA Domain Policy, the "space" symbol may be substituted for the "-" symbol, or such symbol may be deleted from the Mark representation as domain name altogether, without any substitution. The choice of suitable option is left at registrant's discretion.
This Explanatory Note shall be published on the .UA Domain Administrator’s official website (www.hostmaster.ua).