The report has been published pursuant to Article 16 of the .eu Regulation (2019/517/EU) on the implementation and functioning of the .eu top-level domain name, which states that the Commission must, by 30 June 2020, assess whether and how the Registry (currently EURid) is to cooperate with the EUIPO and other Union agencies with a view to combating speculative and abusive registrations of domain names.

The .eu Regulation defines “Speculative and abusive registration” as registering a domain name that is identical or confusingly similar to a name for which a right is recognised or established by national and/or Union law, which: (a) has been registered by its holder with no right or legitimate interest associated with it; or (b) has been registered or is being used in bad faith. Such speculative and abusive .eu registrations must be revoked, using the .eu alternative dispute resolution (ADR) process or a judicial procedure initiated by the rightsholders.

The .eu Regulation requires the Commission to promote cooperation between the .eu Registry, the European Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) and other Union bodies, to combat speculative and abusive registrations of domain names, including cybersquatting. The report is an evaluation of this cooperation. The report notes the most recent evidence of cooperation between EURid and EUIPO was on 20 May 2019, when the parties signed a collaboration agreement and two new functionalities were made available to EUTM holders:

1. an availability check for the corresponding domain name when filing a EUTM; and
2. a notification alert when a domain name corresponding to a EUTM is registered.

EURid’s guardianship of the .eu domain name comes to an end in October 2022. Before then, the parties have agreed under their joint work programme for 2020-22, amongst other things, to explore the possibility of implementing a reciprocal process when a .eu domain name is registered, such that domain name holders will be able to see if a trade mark with a similar name is available at EUIPO.

Overall, the Commission concludes that the cooperation between EURid and EUIPO is satisfactory. The report suggests improvements need to be made in relation to awareness-raising and knowledge-building  activities, as well as improving existing tools and developing new tools to facilitate the simultaneous registration of EUTMs and .eu domain names.

As for collaboration with other entities, the Commission concludes that the current collaboration with Europol could be strengthened and new collaborations could be introduced, e.g. with national trade mark offices. To read the report in full, click here.