- The Service. Registrarprovides the Service to holders of both
registered and common law trademarks or service marks (collectively
“Trademarks”).During the domain name
application process, applicants for a .biz domain name (“Applicants”) will be
notified of an Owner’s alleged intellectual property rights in a Trademark if
the domain name contained in the domain name application is an exact match of
the Trademark identified in an IP Claim (as defined below) submitted by
Owner.You may review frequently asked
questions regarding the Service by reviewing our FAQs.
- Registration,
Password and Security.You must provide accurate, complete and
current registration information and must update this information promptly if
it changes.
You represent and warrant that You are at least eighteen (18) years
of age or older and are either an Owner or an Agent duly authorized to
represent an Owner(s) in connection with the Service and submitting an IP Claim
on behalf of an Owner(s).Agent will
indemnify and hold harmless Registrar and its officers, directors, employees,
agents, affiliates and subcontractors for any claims brought by Owner or Third
Parties relating to the use of the Service.
- License
to Use Data / Privacy. By submitting an IP Claim, You hereby grant
Registrar, as well as any of its agents or subcontractors, a limited,
royalty-free, non-exclusive worldwide license to use all of the data contained
in the IP Claim solely for the purposes of implementing the Service, processing
Your IP Claim, notifying Applicants of Your IP Claim, and for notifying You of
changes to the Service, for archival purposes.
- The
IP Claim Process. In order to submit a claim with respect to a
Trademark or Trademarks (“IP Claim”) through the Service, You must
complete an IP Claim form for each Trademark.For each IP Claim, You must submit complete contact information,
representative contact information and notification details, and the details
regarding the Trademark.You may
specify in the representative field that an Agent may receive legal correspondence
regarding the IP Claim.Once You have
submitted an IP Claim, you will receive a confirmation email and a claim
number.You must retain the claim
number for each IP Claim You submit.
Registrar will accept IP Claims until July 9, 2001, or such later
date as it may determine in its sole discretion (“Close of Phase I”) and no IP
Claims will be accepted after that date.
From the Close of Phase I until September 25, 2001 (“Phase 2”), or
such other later date as Registrar may choose, in its sole discretion, the
domain name applications from ICANN-approved registrars (“Applications”) will
be compared with the database of IP Claims processed through the Service (“IP
Claim Database”).For each exact match
between an IP Claim in the IP Claim Database and a domain name application, the
Registry Operator for .Biz (“Registry Operator”) will notify the Applicant that
a third party or third parties have submitted an IP Claim for the exact
Trademark.The email notification to
the Applicant will include, among other things, the information provided by
Owner in the IP Claim, instructions on how to proceed with the registration
process, and that if selected during the randomized name selection phase (“Name
Selection Phase”), the domain name will be placed on a temporary thirty (30)
day hold when the Registry goes “live.”The Applicant will have the option to proceed with the Application or
cancel the Application.If the
Applicant does not respond to the email notification, or elects to cancel the
Application, the Applicant’s domain name application will not be
processed during the Name Selection Phase.If the Applicant chooses to proceed with the registration process and
the name is selected during the Name Selection Phase, that domain name
automatically will be placed on a thirty (30) day “hold period” when the name
is registered.
After Name Selection, the Owner will be notified by Registry
Operator if an Applicant has successfully registered the domain name.The Owner will then have the option of
contacting the Applicant and finding a solution or using the guidelines set
forth by a special dispute resolution process called the Start-up Trademark
Opposition Policy (“STOP”)(formerly referred to as the Start-up Dispute
Resolution Policy or “SUDRP”) (“information available at
http://www.neulevel.com/countdown/stop.html, or the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute
Resolution Procedures (“UDRP”) (information is available at
http://www.icann.org/udrp/udrp-policy-24oct99.htm).
You will not be notified if there are no Applications that exactly
match an IP Claim You submitted in the IP Claim Database.
USE OF THE
SERVICE DOES NOT GUARANTEE THAT AN OWNER WILL BE AWARDED THE .BIZ EXTENSION FOR
ITS TRADEMARK.AN OWNER THAT WISHES TO
OBTAIN A .BIZ EXTENSION FOR ITS TRADEMARK MUST FILE A DOMAIN NAME APPLICATION.
DOMAIN NAME
APPLICANTS WILL ONLY BE NOTIFIED OF APPLICATIONS THAT ARE EXACT MATCHES WITH A
TRADEMARK IDENTIFIED IN AN IP CLAIM FORM.REGISTRAR WILL NOT VERIFY WHETHER A TRADEMARK CLAIMED ON AN IP CLAIM
FORM CORRESPONDS WITH AN ACTUAL, LEGAL OR VALID TRADEMARK, NOR WILL REGISTRAR
PROVIDE ANY LEGAL OVERSIGHT OR ADJUDICATION FOR ANY DISPUTED INTELLECTUAL
PROPERTY IMPLICATED BY THE SERVICE.
- Conduct. You may access and use the Service for lawful purposes only and
you are solely responsible for the knowledge and adherence to any and all laws,
statutes, rules and regulations pertaining to Your use of the Service.You agree that You will not (i)use the
Service to commit a criminal offence or to encourage conduct that would constitute
a criminal offence or give rise to a civil liability, or otherwise violate any
local state, Federal or international law or regulation; (ii)upload or
otherwise transmit any content that You do not have a right to transmit under
any law or contractual or fiduciary duty; (iii)interfere or infringe with
any trademark or proprietary rights of any other party; (iv)interfere
with the ability of other users to access or use the Service; (v)claim a
relationship with or to speak for any individual, business, association,
institution or other organization for which You are not authorized to claim
such a relationship; (vi)interfere with or disrupt the Service or servers
or networks connected to the Service, or disobey any requirements, procedures,
policies or regulations of networks connected to the Service; or
(vii)reproduce, duplicate, copy, use, distribute, sell, resell or
otherwise exploit for any commercial purposes any portion of the Service.
- Fees. As consideration for the Service, You agree to pay Registrar, or
its agents or subcontractors, as the case may be, an IP Claim fee for each IP
Claim submitted through the Service by credit card through its online payment
system.Such fee shall be due
immediately and is non-refundable.Registrar, or its agents or subcontractors, may take all remedies to
collect fees owed.Registrar, or its
agents or subcontractors may require you to submit and pay for each IP Claim
individually or it may allow you store up a certain number of IP Claims before
submitting them for processing.Once
you have stored that number of IP Claims, you may not be able to store any
additional IP Claims and may need to submit them for processing and pay the
applicable fee before obtaining additional storage space.No refunds are permitted.
- Agents. You agree that, if Your agent (e.g., an attorney,
employee, etc.) submits an IP Claim on Your behalf, You are nonetheless bound
as a principal by all Terms of Use herein. Your continued use of the Services
shall ratify any unauthorized actions of Your agent. By acting on Your behalf,
Your agent certifies that he or she is authorized to use the Service on Your
behalf, that he or she is authorized to bind You to these Terms of Use and that
he or she has apprised You of these Terms of Use of this Agreement.In addition, You are responsible for any
errors made by Your agent.Registrar
will not refund fees paid by You or Your agent on Your behalf for any reason,
including, but not limited to, in the event that Your agent fails to comply
with these Terms of Use, Your agent incorrectly provides information in the IP
Claim process or if Your agent changes or otherwise modifies Your IP Claim
incorrectly.
- Copyright. You acknowledge that the Service, any underlying
technology used in connection with the Service, and all software, material,
information, communications, text, graphics, links, electronic art, animations,
audio, video, photos, and other data (collectively, the “Content”) available
within the Service are provided by Registrar or third-party providers and are
the copyrighted works of Registrar and/or such third parties.Except as expressly authorized by Registrar
or such third parties in these Terms of Use or as may be posted on the Service,
You may not copy, reproduce, publish, distribute, modify, create derivative
works of, rent, lease, sell, transfer, display, transmit, compile or collect in
a database, or in any manner commercially exploit any part of the Content or
the Service, in whole or in part.You
may not store any significant portion of any Content or the Service owned by,
or licensed to Registrar in any form, whether archival files, computer-readable
files, or any other medium.You also
may not “mirror” any Content or the Service on any other server.
Registrar encourages you to download and print a reasonable number
of copies of an IP Claim for non-commercial, internal use only; provided that (i)any permitted copies
contain, in unmodified form, any copyright or other proprietary rights notices
and an original source attribution to the Service; and (ii)no
modifications are made except as may be expressly provided by Registrar.
- Links. Some links on the Service lead to sites posted by independent
site owners.Because Registrar has no
control over these sites, it cannot be responsible for such sites’ accessibility
via the Internet and does not endorse products, services, or information
provided by such sites.As such,
Registrar shall not be responsible or liable, directly or indirectly, for any
damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with, use or
reliance on any content, goods or services available on or through any other
site.Further, the inclusion of these
links does not imply that the other sites have given permission for inclusion
of these links, or that there is any relationship between Registrar and the
linked sites.
- Disclaimer
of Warranty, Limitation of Liability. YOU AGREE THAT YOUR ACCESS TO AND USE OF THE SERVICE IS AT YOUR OWN
RISK.NEITHER REGISTRAR NOR ITS
PARENTS, SUBSIDIARIES, SHAREHOLDERS, MEMBERS, OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, AFFILIATES,
AGENTS OR SUBCONTRACTORS WARRANT THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR
ERROR-FREE; NOR DO THEY MAKE ANY WARRANTY AS TO THE RESULTS THAT MAY BE
OBTAINED FROM THE USE OF THE SERVICE OR AS TO THE ACCURACY, RELIABILITY, OR
CONTENT WITHIN THE SERVICE.
THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED ON AN “AS IS, “AS AVAILABLE” BASIS WITHOUT
REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING
BUT NOT LIMITED TO IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSES AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.
IN NO EVENT WILL REGISTRAR NOR ITS PARENTS, SUBSIDIARIES,
SHAREHOLDERS, MEMBERS, OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, AFFILIATES, AGENTS OR
SUBCONTRACTORS BE LIABLE TO YOU OR ANY THIRD PARTY FOR ANY INCIDENTAL,
INDIRECT, SPECIAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY
OF SUCH DAMAGES), ARISING OUT YOUR USE OF OR INABILITY TO ACCESS OR USE THE
SERVICE, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, LOSS OF REVENUE OR ANTICIPATED PROFITS,
LOSS OF GOODWILL, LOST BUSINESS, LOST DATA, COMPUTER FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION, OR
ANY AND ALL OTHER DAMAGES OR LOSSES THAT RESULT FROM MISTAKES, INACCURATELY
ENTERED DATA, UNAUTHORIZED USE, OMISSIONS, INTERRUPTIONS, ERRORS, DEFECTS,
DELAYS IN OPERATION, OR ANY FAILURE OF PERFORMANCE, WHETHER OR NOT LIMITED TO
ACTS OF GOD, COMMUNICATIONS FAILURE, THEFT, DESTRUCTION OR UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS
TO INSTITUTIONS RECORDS, PROGRAMS OR SERVICES.YOU AGREE THAT THE FOREGOING LIMITATIONS OF LIABILITY REPRESENT A
REASONABLE ALLOCATION OF RISK.
IN NO EVENT, SHALL REGISTRAR BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY AMOUNT
EXCEEDING THE AMOUNT OF FEES PAID BY YOU FOR THE APPLICABLE IP CLAIM.
- Indemnification. You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Registrar and its
parents, subsidiaries, shareholders, members, officers, directors, employees,
affiliates, agents and subcontractors from any claim or demand, including
reasonable attorney’s fees made by any third party due to or arising out of
Your use of the Service, your breach of these Terms of Use, any Content
submitted to the Service, or any disputes involving the intellectual property
rights of the Trademarks.
- Modifications
to the Service. Registrar reserves the right at any time and
from time to time to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, the
Service (or any part thereof) with or without notice.You agree that Registrar will not be liable to You or to any
third party for any modification, suspension, or discontinuation of the
Services.
- Termination. You may discontinue Your participation in and access to the
Service at any time.These Terms of Use
will continue to apply to all past use of the Service by You, even if You are
no longer using the Service.You
acknowledge and agree that Registrar may terminate or block Your use of all or
part of the Service without prior notice for any reason, including, without
limitation, if Registrar believes You have engaged in conduct prohibited by
these Terms of Use.You agree that upon
termination or discontinuance for any reason, may delete all information
related to You on the Service and may bar Your access to and use of the
Service.
- Governing
Law. These
Terms of Use shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of
the Province of Ontario, without regard to its principles of conflicts of law.
- Changes
to the Terms of Use. Registrar reserves the right to modify the
Terms of Use at any time and from time to time.Any modifications shall be effective upon the posting of the
modified Terms of Use at http://ipclaims.neulevel.com/legal/conditions.php.You agree to review these Terms of Use
periodically so that You are aware of any modifications.Your continued use of the Service shall be
deemed Your acceptance of the modified Terms of Use.
- Severability. In the event that any provision of these Terms of Use shall be
unenforceable or invalid under any applicable law or be so held by applicable
court decision, such unenforceability or invalidity shall not render this
Agreement unenforceable or invalid as a whole, and, in such event, such
provision shall be changed and interpreted so as to best accomplish the
objectives of such provision within the limits of applicable law or applicable
court decision.
- Third
Party Beneficiary. Registry Operator (“NeuLevel”) is an intended
third party beneficiary of these Term and Conditions with rights to enforce
these Terms of Use.You will cooperate
in good faith with NeuLevel or Registrar in investigating instances of
non-compliance with these Terms of Use, if NeuLevel or Registrar believes in
good faith that you are not in compliance with these Terms of Use.
- Subcontractors. In the course of providing the IP Claim Service, Registrar may
retain independent contractors or assign or subcontract to or otherwise have
any third party perform any or all of the IP Claim Service at any time,
provided that Registrar shall continue to remain responsible for full
performance of any such duties to the same extent as if it had performed the IP
Claim Service itself.
- Entire
Agreement. These Terms of Use completely and
exclusively state the agreement of the parties regarding the subject matter,
and supersede all prior agreements and understandings, whether written or oral,
with respect to the subject matter of these Terms of Use.
- Modifications
to your Account. In order to change any of your account
information with Registrar, you must use the Account Identifier and Password
selected when you opened your account with Registrar.You agree to safeguard your Account Identifier and Password from
any unauthorized use.In no event shall
Registrar be liable for the unauthorized use or misuse of your Account
Identifier or Password.
- Breach. You agree that failure to abide by an provision of this
Agreement, any operating rule or policy or the Dispute Policy provided by
Registrar, may be considered by Registrar to be a material breach and that
Registrar may provide a written notice, describing the breach, to you.If within thirty (30) calendar days of the
date of such notice, you fail to provide evidence, which is reasonably
satisfactory to Registrar, that you have not breached your obligations under
the Agreement, then Registrar may delete the registration or reservation of
your domain name.Any such breach by
you shall not be deemed to be excused simply because Registrar did not act
earlier in response to that, or any other breach by you.
- No
Guarantee. You acknowledge that reservation of your IP
Claim name does not confer immunity from objection to either the registration,
reservation, or use of the domain name.
- Right
of Refusal. Registrar, in its sole discretion, reserves
the right to refuse to register or reserve your IP Claim name or register you
for other services.You agree that
Registrar shall not be liable to you for loss or damages that may result from
its refusal to register, reserve or delete your IP Claim.
Registrar reserves the right to delete or
transfer your IP Claim within a thirty (30) day period following receipt of the
application if it believes the IP Claim has been made possible by a mistake,
made either by Registrar or by a third party.