Amsterdam, 27 October 2010 – Following the much talked-about announcement of the .CO.NO domain, CoDNS is proud to present its finalized Sunrise policy. Central element of the policy is the protection of registered trademarks for an unprecedented competitive pricing: never before have trademark owners been able to participate in a “Sunrise” period at such low cost.

Trademark holders have already shown great enthusiasm in this new international extension that offers them better local visibility and additional flexibility. While Norwegian domain registrations can be perceived as restrictive, registrations under .CO.NO have no limitations, whether in the number of domains that can be registered per individual or company nor the demand for local presence.

Sander Scholten, Manager of CoDNS and responsible for .CO.NO, explains “Research has shown that .CO.NO domains attract a lot of traffic from foreign countries such as, among others, the UK, India and Japan. The Sunrise period is a great opportunity for trademarks to capture this traffic while avoiding misuses of their brand. For their protection, we are announcing today the details of our Sunrise Policy under which any trademark registered with the .CO.NO ending can profit from temporarily priority against unmatched pricing!”

In addition to the standard Sunrise application method, CoDNS is also one of the first Domain Name operators to offer a new optional method to submit Sunrise applications: the ClearingHouse for Intellectual Property, also referred to as ‘CHIP’ (www.ipclearinghouse.org). CHIP is a centralized repository of trademark claims that can be used by the corresponding brand owners in order to safeguard their brands in the context of new and future Domain Names Registries. CHIP is designed by Bart Lieben, counsel with the law firm of Crowell & Moring, who has assisted the Registries of .EU, .MOBI, .ASIA, .TEL, .NL, .CO.NL, .ME, and .CO in launching their domain name extensions.

By using CHIP, trademark holders can also get their IP validated now for the .SO and the .CO.NO Sunrise processes for a one-off fee, and re-use this record for future sunrises that will be managed via CHIP in a more orderly, transparent and, above all, cost-efficient manner than previous launch processes.

The CO.NO Sunrise phase will last three months and start on Monday November 1st  2010 at 10:00 am GMT. This period will provide applicants, holding a registered trademark in any country, with the opportunity to register their brands as CO.NO names before the system is open to the general public.

Following the Sunrise, the Go Live period will open on Tuesday the 22nd of February 2010 at 2:00 pm GMT. Application requests can be made by the general public without any restriction or priority rights, and will be accepted on a first come, first served basis. This also is a great opportunity to get generic names before others want to!

Brand owners willing to take part in the .CO.NO Sunrise Period can choose between 70 of the leading Registrars worldwide, whose list can be accessed here: http://domain.co.no/gb/accredited-registrars.html

For more information on CoDNS, the launch of .CO.NO and its registration dates, please visit http://www.domain.co.no for details.

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Contact:
Sander Scholten
CoDNS B.V.
mobile: +31 6 11625540
email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

About the operator
CoDNS B.V. was established in 2007 by EuroDNS S.A. to manage the registration of domains with the .co.nl extension. As part of EuroDNS family, CoDNS is responsible for EuroDNS’ sub domain registries.

About CO.NO
CO.NO should not be confused with .NO Domain names as registered by Norid, the Registry of the .NO extension. Norid is not involved in any way with the registration or servicing of co.no subdomains. See www.domain.co.no for details.

About CHIP
The Clearing House for IP (‘CHIP’) is a revolutionary system and service aimed at assisting brand owners in securing and safeguarding their trademark rights on the Internet, and more in particular in the domain name space. CHIP intends to support brand owners in the context of a wide variety of rights protection mechanisms that are put in place by, for instance, domain name registries and policy-making bodies.

About Domain Names
By the 3rd quarter of 2010, about 200 million domain names were registered around the world. About 85 million of these domains are registered under country code top-level domains (ccTLD) like .no and .co.jp. The remaining domains are registered under general top-level domains (gTLD) like .com and .net.