The Kyoto College of Graduate Studies for Informatics Cyber Kyoto Laboratory will begin selling the geographical name top-level domain ".kyoto" to trademark registrants (for alphanumeric names and hyphens that are registered as trademarks) as "Sunrise I" sales program from October 1st.
The Cyber Kyoto Laboratory is the sole registry for ".kyoto" with the support of Kyoto Prefecture. The first user of ".kyoto" is Urasenke, a Kyoto-based tea ceremony family who participated in the Founders Program, and has been operating "urasenke.kyoto" since June 1 of this year. The Founders Program, which allows users to reserve and acquire up to 20 domain names in advance, will remain open until November 30 of this year.
The ".kyoto" sales program will proceed in accordance with the regulations of ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), a non-profit organization in the United States that manages domains used on the Internet. Following the "Sunrise I" program, the "Sunrise II" program (for names that are registered as trademarks; the Japanese readings of the trademark registrations are in romaji) and the "Sunrise III" program (for names that are registered as trademarks) will be launched in December. The schedule is as follows: "Sunrise I" followed by priority registration for public and public interest organizations and "Sunrise II" (for names registered as trademarks, provided that the Japanese reading of the trademark registration exactly matches the romanization), "Landrush" (at a premium price) from January 2016, and general registration from February 2016.
In July 2013, The Kyoto College of Graduate Studies for Informatics, with the support of Kyoto Prefecture, applied to ICANN for the management and operation of the ".kyoto" domain name. This university is the first educational institution in the world to operate and manage a geographical name top-level domain. The use of ".kyoto" is positioned as a joint industry-government-academia "public service project," and while establishing a clean domain that even children and students can use safely, we are working hard to further improve the international recognition and brand power of Kyoto as a whole, and to promote operations that will lead to the revitalization of social and economic activities. The Cyber Kyoto Laboratory, the organization responsible for the operation, was established on June 1, 2015 at the Keihanna Open Innovation Center (KICK, formerly Watashinoshigoto-kan, Seika Town and Kizugawa City), an academic research facility operated by the prefectural government. In September last year, the Cyber Kyoto Laboratory received the first certification from the prefectural government for its research utilization plan at the center. On May 26, 2015, The Kyoto College of Graduate Studies for Informatics and Kyoto Prefecture signed a comprehensive agreement on collaboration and cooperation, which includes the use of ".kyoto" to strengthen the promotion of the Kyoto brand.
Cyber Kyoto Laboratory
http://ckl.kyoto/
