"Businesses are unclear on how to really approach the new gTLD programme and are as yet undecided on how they should position themselves," said Ben Anderson of NetNames, commenting on new research commissioned by Deloitte into general awareness of the new gTLD programme and the action those businesses are taking. 

The research, conducted in the UK and US, asked 200 global consumer-facing businesses with 3,000 to 10,000+ employees about their intellectual provisions relating to the introduction of new gTLDs.

The research compared both the US and UK as well as comparing businesses with five to ten thousand employees to those with over ten thousand employees. While there were differences between the groups, overall the differences were not that great most of the time.

According to the research, around 80 percent of businesses in both countries had at least a "good general awareness" of the coming new gTLDs and over two-thirds of businesses considered there was a medium to high risk to their intellectual property such as through cybersquatting or trademark infringement.

Businesses in both countries also believed there was adequate intellectual property and trademark protections in place, with benefits outweighing any risks. Around two-thirds of businesses in both countries were of this opinion while around 15 percent of businesses disagreed.

And while there were adequate protections, businesses also believed the methods in place to proactively protect their trademarks was difficult, with around 85 percent of businesses thinking the process was at least somewhat difficult. And the introduction of the Trademark Clearinghouse was viewed as a positive with around 72 percent of businesses in the UK and 82 percent in the US believing the TMCH will help protect their company's intellectual property in the new gTLDs.

But when it comes to protecting their trademarks using the TMCH, around a half of businesses did not know if they would, while close to two in five businesses said they would.

The research also asked businesses what gTLD Sunrise periods they would participate in. The most popular here were branded domains (over two-thirds) and internationalised domain name gTLDs (around 60%), while geographic domains attracted a stronger interest in the US (60% for the US, 43% for the UK) and generic gTLDs attracted a stronger interest in the UK (45% v 36%).

When it comes to the size of the company, larger companies were more interested in branded domains (73% for companies with over 10,000 employees compared to 59% for companies with 5-10,000 employees). This was reversed for the smaller companies (74% for smaller companies, 50% for larger).

Respondents were also asked about their views on the benefits of the TMCH. Claims notification and sunrise participation were the most popular, along with "the fact I only have to submit my marks once". Over half of all respondents in both countries viewing this as important, while flexibility of the length of protection was also viewed as important. The results were similar for the different sized companies questioned.

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