Sunrise Period 2b,2c and 3 has started at November 13th.

SR2b: General Marks Sunrise for newer trademarks (applied for before December 6, 2006) or marks that have not yet been actively used

SR2c: Extended Protection for trademark owners to protect their brands beyond the term itself but also domain names that are relevant to their lines of businesses: e.g. XYZ.Asia and XYZcomputers.Asia.

Sunrise 3 (SR3) allows companies in the region to protect and use their name with the asia-domain.

These possibilities shall be extended.See http://www.registry.asia/draft/DotAsia-Sunrise-Addendum--FINALDRAFT-2007-10-12.pdf

You can also register an asia-domain, if your trade mark has a suffix of a top level domain. Roger.asia can be registered, if your trade mark protects roger.com.

Registered Name Holders of certain ccTLD extensions in Asia may apply for the same domain with the .ASIA Registry during SR3. No further documentary evidence needs to be submitted unless requested by the .ASIA Registry. - The Applicant must declare the particular ccTLD extension the SR3 application is based on (by including it in the field in the Application). - The WHOIS information obtained at the ccTLD registry should correspond with the Registrant Contact information submitted. - The Domain Name Applied for must correspond to the Entity Name.

Applicable ccTLDs include .com.au, .co.jp, .co.kr, .com.hk, .com.my and others. A list of the applicable ccTLD extensions is included in Appendix A of the Special Advisory.

Interested readers can see more details there: http://www.registry.asia/draft/DotAsia-SR3-Advisory--2007-11-09.pdf

Hans-Peter Oswald https://www.domainregistry.de/asia.html

About the Author

CEO of ICANN accredited registrar Secura