EURid and EUIPO have announced a move to help tackle bad faith domain name applications in Europe. According to EUIPO's press release today:

A new service, launched by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) and EURid, the registry manager of the .eu and .ею country code top-level domains, aims to help European Union trade mark (EUTM) applicants tackle cybersquatting and bad faith domain name registrations.

Once trade mark applications are published, they are vulnerable to being registered as domain names, including with.eu and .ею, by third parties. However, as and from today, EURid and EUIPO have implemented a new service which allows rights holders and applicants to opt-in to receive alerts as soon as a .eu or .ею domain name identical to their EUTM application is registered.

This proactive notification allows rights holders and applicants to take appropriate action much more quickly than if they had to conduct a search themselves. It might also mean that third party registrations with other domain names can be detected quickly, if multiple bad faith registrations are made.

EURid and EUIPO have been working together since 2016 to allow EUTM applicants to easily check if an equivalent .eu or .ею domain name is available, and to register it with accredited registrars.

The opt-in service for EUTM applicants and rights holders goes a step further in helping to tackle potential .eu and .ею domain name abuse, and in creating a more transparent and trustworthy online .eu space.

In addition, a second consecutive letter of collaboration has been signed between EURid and EUIPO at the International Trademark Association (INTA) Annual Meeting in Boston, continuing the collaboration that has been on-going between the two organisations since 2016.