Liberalisation of PT Domain Names

On 23 February 2012, the FCCN (Foundation for National Scientific Computing) announced a new version of the “Regulations for registration of .PT Domains”, which will come into force tomorrow, 1 March 2012.

The new regulations will not take effect immediately. In fact, the FCCN has established a so called “Sunrise Period” during the first 60 days of the regulations – i.e. until 1 May 2012 – in order to protect owners of formally obtained rights, namely public bodies, firms, company names, trade marks and other distinctive signs, copyright and professional, and literary or artistic names. During this period, it will be possible to register names that are completely identical to the registered rights (public bodies and legal persons will also be allowed to register abbreviations or acronyms) as .PT domains.

When the sunrise period finishes, the liberalisation of the .PT domains will finally occur. However, the new regulations will not result in a total lack of protection for trade mark owners. The new regulations maintain the former prohibition on registration of .PT domain names if there is a likelihood of confusion with well known trade marks or trade marks with a reputation.

The end of the ‘.net.pt’, ‘.int.pt’, ‘.publ.pt’ and ‘.name.pt’ subdomains

The new regulations also introduce changes to the registration of .PT subdomains, with the FCCN having decided to stop accepting the registration of the ‘.net.pt’, ‘.int.pt’, ‘.publ.pt’ and ‘.name.pt’ subdomains. This change will not affect the registration of any domains made under the previous regulations.