The Russian extension, .РФ, is expected to be transferred to Russia in late March. Russia’s eagerness to move forward with this process quickly was apparent ever since the country filed an application for this IDN TLD just hours after applications were first accepted on November 16, 2009.

The director overseeing the .РФ TLD, Andrei Kolesnikov, noted that there might be some technical and administrative issues leading to further delays. In particular, he mentioned the trademark minefield as there are many competing trademark holders who are applying for the same name in the .РФ ccTLD (link here). Russia’s trademark system allows many different companies to register the same trademark as long as they operate in different categories of business. This is similar to the U.S. For instance, “Apple Banks” and “Apple Computers” could both have trademark claims to the term “Apple” when used in their respective spaces, banking and computers. When it comes to registering domains, both these companies (if their trademarks are registered with Russia) can lay a claim to яблоко.РФ (apple.rf). This is why Andrei Kolesnikov decided that when there is competition between several trademark holders who are applying for the same domain name, the domain will be awarded to the first applicant (link here).

It is nice to see Russia moving along quickly with the .РФ IDN ccTLD, which should raise awareness of the IDN.com market as well.