.Song and .YellowPages fresh TLD objections denied

Two more objections fail, bringing total to 18.

World Intellectual Property Organization panelists have denied two more Legal Rights Objections to fresh top level domain name applications.

The latest failed objections are for .song and .yellowpages.

Of the 18 determined cases so far, the objectors have lost in each of them.

That has a lot to do with panelists and applicants sniffing out “trademark frontrunning” in which an entity applied for (and gained, in some jurisdiction) some sort of trademark rights in an effort to get a leg up in the fresh TLD application process.

The .song objection was filed by DotMusic Limited, which also failed in its objection for .tunes. You can read an explanation of the .tunes decision, which is similar to .song and also involves Amazon.com, here.

The same person that purchased marks for .song and .tunes also sold off a mark for .home to another applicant that used it to file objections on .home. WIPO panelists have been flogging Defender Security Firm in each of its .home objections.

As for .yellowpages, the objector is Hibu, which has rights to the Yellow Pages mark in the United Kingdom. The applicant is Australian telecom firm Telstra. This was an issue of territorial rights to a term. Given that both firms have some sort of rights to the term in their jurisdiction, Panelist Richard Page observed:

The gTLD application process is a priority system in which any applicant with standing can file an application. The Applicant has applied for in the .yellowpages gTLD first and paid the significant application fee.

In other words, if this was so notable to Hibu, it ought to have applied for the domain itself.