The International Trademark Association (INTA) has published a study about TLD registrations by trademark owners. The survey says that trademark owners are active in the registration of domain names: 97% of INTA members registered domain names over a period of the past 24 months with 90% of them in new domains.
At the same time, The Domains reports, in most cases these registrations were made for defensive purposes: trademark owners register domain names that are associated with their trademarks and brands the only goal of which is to prevent them from being registered by third parties. Most often such domains are parked or used for redirection to the official websites of trademark owners (less so for the new TLDs).
Trademark owners also are very protective towards registrations that, in their opinion, violate their intellectual property rights: 76% of INTA members were forced to send cease and desist letters to registrants and registrars of new TLDs, while 27% took civil action in accordance with the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP).
