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IP Claim Service
Terms Of Use
THIS IS A LEGALLY BINDING AGREEMENT BETWEEN TUCOWS, INC.
(?REGISTRAR?) AND YOU, THE OWNER OF A REGISTERED OR COMMON LAW
TRADEMARK OR SERVICE MARK (?OWNER?) OR THE DULY AUTHORIZED
AGENT OF AN OWNER (?AGENT?) (COLLECTIVELY, ?YOU?). THESE TERMS OF
USE ARE THE COMPLETE AND EXCLUSIVE STATEMENT OF THE TERMS OF
USE REGARDING USE OF THE REGISTRAR?S INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
CLAIM SERVICE (THE ?SERVICE?).
BY SELECTING ?I AGREE,? BY USING THE SERVICE OR BY SIGNIFYING
ACCEPTANCE IN ANY OTHER WAY, YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THESE
TERMS OF USE. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH ALL OF THESE TERMS OF USE,
YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO USE THE SERVICE AND YOU MUST
DISCONTINUE ANY FURTHER USE.
1. The Service. Registrar provides 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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, 2020, 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, 2020 (?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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. 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.
12. 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.
13. 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.
14. 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.
15. 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.
16. 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.
17. 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.
18. 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.
19. 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.
20. 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.
21. 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.
22. 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.
23. 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.
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