The Jessops brand and certain assets of Jessops, the collapsed high street camera retailer which went into administration at the beginning of January, have been purchased by a consortium.

The sale included intellectual property rights owned by the retailer, including various trade marks and domain names. Lawrence Graham's Intellectual Property team were instructed to assist on the purchase of the various intellectual property rights from Administrators, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

Jessops, originally founded in Leicestershire in 1935, became the first high street casualty of 2013, followed shortly after by high street chains HMV and Blockbuster. High street retailers have seen profits fall ...

Following its decision in June 2011 to approve the programme for the opening of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs), the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the organisation responsible for the management of the internet's domain name system, has now released an updated version of the Applicant Guidebook (AGB).  The Guidebook was originally published in May 2011 and operates as a comprehensive guide for applicants to the requirements and assessment processes of the new gTLDs.

The updated Guidebook does not contain significant policy changes, but does now include a list of terms which will be reserved for the ...

A group of researchers have exposed the scale of the security risks presented by a simple typo.

Over a six month period, the researchers intercepted 120,000 emails representing 20GB of data intended to reach Fortune 500 companies by employing a simple strategy being popularised amongst cyber criminals.  The data included trade secrets, business invoices, personal information about employees, network diagrams and passwords.

The feat was achieved by simply buying 30 domain names they calculated people might send emails to by accident.  The strategy was to select domain names which were identical to subdomains used by Fortune 500 companies but for ...

From today (7 September 2011), businesses and individuals both inside and outside the adult entertainment industry have the opportunity to either register for a .xxx domain name or submit an application for their name to be excluded from .xxx registration.

This 'sunrise' period will last 50 days, ending on 28 October 2011, and gives adult entertainment businesses the opportunity to register a .xxx domain name whilst also giving high profile companies and individuals the opportunity to protect themselves from being exploited through the registration of their names in association with .xxx domain names.  Those wishing to protect their name will have ...

The closure of the News of the World ("NOTW") newspaper following the phone hacking scandal has gained plenty of press over the last week but we wanted to address the specific IP implications of its closure.

Brand Damage Control

The closure of NOTW was a decisive move by its parent company, News International, to try and draw a line under the phone hacking scandal and to save the rest of News International's businesses, such as The Times and The Sun, from being tainted by their association with NOTW.  It was a sacrificial move by News International to protect ...

ICANN (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has today announced plans to increase the number of web suffixes so that domain names end in virtually any word and in any language.

Under the new plans, hundreds of generic top-level domain names ("gTLDs") will become available for registration in addition to the 22 gTLDs that currently exist (i.e. .com), and the 290 country-level domain names (i.e. .uk).  This means that companies and brand owners will be able to boost brand awareness by purchasing URLs ending in their brand name, for example .Nike.

Industry experts have ...

At 12 noon BST today, the "Landrush" phase of the application process for .uk short domain names closes.

As previously reported, any domains names with more than one application will go to auction, with the highest bidder securing the domain name, see here. 

A search of the remaining 2,640 short domain names on Nominet's website reveals that there are very few domain names left which have not been applied for and many have a number of applications.  For example, 21 applications have been filed for t.co.uk, including applications by T-Mobile's parent company, Deutsche Telecom and Huawei, a Chinese telecoms ...

Previously, we have reported on the release of thousands of .uk short domain names that have become available for registration, see here.  The Landrush phase for the remaining 2,640 .uk short domain names commenced on 23 May 2011 and closes on 15 June 2011 at noon.

During the Landrush phase of the application process an interested party can apply to register the remaining .uk short domain names.  Registrants should submit their applications for the short domain names they are interested in via a Registrar and pay the relevant application and registration fees.  Details of the fees can be found ...

After much debate and consultation, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has approved the use of the ".xxx" domain name at a meeting on Friday 18 March. 

It has created the new sponsored top level domain name (sTLD) amid much controversy.  ICM Registry first applied to sponsor .xxx domain in 2003 and it has taken 8 years to obtain approval as the application was initially blocked by ICANN. 

ICANN has published a draft report detailing the rationale for approving the .xxx domain name.  It is interesting and perhaps unsurprising that ICANN states that this issue has generated ...

On 21 January 2011, we set out the timetable for those wanting to apply for short .uk domain names (see here). 

We can now report that the second phase of the application process goes live today.  The Registered Rights Sunrise phase of the application process has now been completed and the owners of registered trade marks enforceable in the UK have now acquired the short domains they applied for.

Today marks the start of the second phase, the Unregistered Rights Sunrise phase.  From midday today, Nominet will accept applications from those who have "eligible rights" in the UK.  This ...