Thomson and Thomson produces the Trademarkscan databases available on several major commercial search services and through its own Web sites. It provides trademark, copyright, intellectual property, and brand name protection services to the legal and corporate markets. According to Jay Gast, president of Thomson and Thomson, "This relationship with idNames is an important step in T&T's evolution—providing our customers with expert domain name registration advice, supplying the business community with valuable intelligence and brand identity information, and demonstrating our continued commitment to providing the most innovative and comprehensive services at each critical stage of the trademark life cycle."

Network Solutions had the original monopoly from the U.S. government for registering Internet domain names in the .com, .net, .org, and .edu generic, top-level domain name categories. That monopoly ended in 1999. Now owned by VeriSign Co., NSI still runs the leading Internet registration service with over 10 million domain names from Registry customers, including all the registrars of domain names ending in .com, .net, and .org. NSI's idNames service assists clients in protecting and maintaining corporate Internet identities worldwide, by handling registration in different countries. Speaking of the new alliance, Jim Rutt, CEO of NSI, said: "With companies going online in record numbers, the lines between trademarks and domain names have been blurring. Together, we're making it easier for customers to protect and promote their trademarks and brands both online and off-line."

Under the new arrangement, idNames will provide Thomson and Thomson users with the following:

• Generic, top-level domain name (gTLD) registration and search services covering the .com, .net, and .org domain areas  
• Country-code top-level domain name (ccTLD) registration and searching for over 192 country domain tags worldwide  
• Worldwide domain name registrant name change agreements (RNCA) which legally transfer ownership of a domain name to another registrant  
• Worldwide private domain name registration to allow corporations to secure domain names for future use without revealing their identities

The idNames service provides special registration services for companies interested in registering their domain names abroad. The cost of assistance varies depending on the number of names covered and the countries designated. For example, a straight registration with unrestricted countries costs $199. For restricted countries, costs will run from $550 for a single name, to $500 each for two to 50 names, and $450 each for 51 to 100 names. Restricted countries, such as France, Canada, Hong Kong, China, etc., are defined as countries with special requirements—e.g., a registrant must have a local presence or fill out specific government-issued documentation. The idNames service will soon announce an arrangement with Andersen Legal Network to handle the local presence requirement for China, the Czech Republic, Greece, and the Netherlands. In this case, Andersen will form the administrative contact—for $1,350 plus idNames charges—and lease back names to corporations. They also have a $1,000 plus idNames basic fees arrangement for Tier 1 countries (Germany, Poland, Russia, Singapore, Thailand, and Italy). The registrations usually cover 2 years and then require another renewal.

Under the new alliance, idNames users will receive access to the following Thomson and Thomson services:

• Trademark screening searches for proposed trademarks from classes related to requestor's products and services  
• U.S. trademark full availability search for a comprehensive search of a proposed trademark against U.S. federal, state, and common law trademarks