My January 2011 column addressed the importance of trademark protection for names of PR firms. This topic is particularly important now, due to two new developments involving domain names. PR agencies that have not already filed a federally registered trademark in the name of their firm now have an added reason to do so.

The worldwide Internet domain name system is coordi-nated by a nonprofit entity called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). ICANN recently implemented two new domain name suffixes known as generic top-level domains (gTLDs). Perhaps the most familiar gTLDs are “.com,” “.org,” “.net,” and “.edu.” ICANN just introduced two new suffixes – .XXX gTLD and the unique or branded gTLD, in addition to the familiar and traditional suffixes previously mentioned.