Public DENIC mailinglist

[DENICpresse <presse AT denic.de>]

Dear Sir or Madam,

“First come, first served“ will remain the registration standard for .de 
domains. The lawfulness of the current DENIC procedure was recently 
confirmed in a judgment pronounced by the Regional Court of Munich I. 

Consequently, DENIC continues being free to carry out registrations of 
domains allowed for the first time, such as the one- and two-character 
domains and domains whose name is composed exclusively of numerals, as per 
a specific point in time with the exclusive applicable standard being the 
principle of priority or equal opportunities for everybody. The Regional 
Court of Munich I thus rejected the claim for registration of the br.de 
domain asserted by the Bavarian radio station "Bayerischer Rundfunk" on 
the grounds of anti-trust laws.

In its decision of 10 February 2010 (reference number 37 O 19801/09), the 
court annulled the temporary injunction obtained against DENIC by the 
Bavarian radio and television station, which previously prohibited 
registration of the br.de domain by DENIC in the name of a third party.

According to the court's judgment, the "first come, first served" 
principle applied by DENIC, which strives for greatest possible equal 
treatment of all applicants, is non-discriminating and does thus not 
violate the provisions of the German Act Against Restraints of Competition 
(GWB).

Since the Bayerische Rundfunk already has an extensive Internet presence 
and thus exclusion from the relevant market of the "World Wide Web" cannot 
be put forward as an argument, the radio station cannot claim unfair 
discrimination as a rationale for being granted another Internet access, 
argues the court. Neither is DENIC obliged to provide a waiting period in 
form of a so-called "sunrise period", during which potential claims of 
holders of possibly existing name and/or identifying marks rights can be 
verified.

Applications for the registration of new domains submitted before the 
domain was officially released and rejected by DENIC at that time do not 
provide a basis for claiming a privilege when the domain is finally 
released at a later date, so the court explicitly concludes.

A similar ruling had already been issued by the Regional Court of 
Frankfurt am Main in a court order dated 21 October 2009 (reference number 
3 10 O 38/09), when it rejected the request of a British enterprise for a 
temporary injunction granting a privilege with regard to the registration 
of the domain tv.de.

To read the full text of the quoted rulings, go to DENIC's webpage "Court 
Decisions" at http://www.denic.de/en/background/court-decisions.html.


Kind regards

Stefanie Welters
Business Services - Public Relations
-- 

DENIC eG
Kaiserstraße 75-77
60329 Frankfurt am Main
GERMANY

E-Mail: presse AT denic.de
Phone: +49 69 27235-274 
Fax: +49 69 27235-235
http://www.denic.de

Angaben nach § 25a Absatz 1 GenG:
DENIC Domain Verwaltungs- und Betriebsgesellschaft eG (Sitz: Frankfurt am 
Main)
Vorstand: Sabine Dolderer, Marcus Schäfer, Carsten Schiefner, Dr. Jörg 
Schweiger 
Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: Elmar Knipp
Eingetragen unter Nr. 770 im Genossenschaftsregister, Amtsgericht 
Frankfurt am Main