WIPO Says Internet Domain Expansion Disruptive

The UN World Intellectual Property Organization has cast a critical eye on the rollout of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs), which is already in progress. The move “is likely to disrupt existing strategies for trademark protection on the web,” WIPO said in a statement. Trademark owners will be encountering “significant uncertainty,” it noted, just at a time when many legal budgets, and with them the  resources for enforcing trademarks, are being strained. The organization estimates that 1,400 new gTLDs will result from the process.