Ocean Tomo to Auction Powerful Domain Name ''£.com'' - The British Pound Symbol's Identity on the Net - on 26 June in Amsterdam

May 28, 2008; 09:22 AM

CHICAGO - (Business Wire) Ocean Tomo Auctions today announced that it will offer for sale the “£.com”, the symbol-based domain name for the British pound symbol, along with related intellectual property assets. The powerful domain name package will be offered by Moneyedge Limited as Lot 40 at The Ocean Tomo 2008 European Live IP Auction to be held at The NH Grand Krasnapolsky in Amsterdam on 26^th June.

“£.com has never been promoted yet has many users curiously typing the name into their browser bar on a daily basis. I would say that 99.99% of internet users still do not know that symbol-based domains exist. This is understandable, however, as they are in extremely short supply (only 16 in ‘.com’) and until recently could not be promoted,” said Richard Haigh, Director of Moneyedge. “Our lot offering also includes ‘poundsymbol.com’ as a complementary domain that will allow £.com to pass the ‘radio test’ and be promoted by every media source.”

Over half a billion people in Europe, and other countries, have the potential to access £.com by using a recent web browser, such as Internet Explorer 7 or Firefox 2. £.com makes use of International Domain Name (IDN) technology, and visitors located in one of the 18 countries that have the £ symbol on their keyboards may access the IDN-enabled browsers, which are now at between 68-71% saturation world-wide, according to Marketshare, the leading browser statistics service.

Haigh continued, “Normally with domain names there is a ‘trade off’. Long domains are more descriptive but are not easy to remember, and short names can be easier to remember but usually are not very descriptive. Thus, users may have difficulty recalling the site. £.com has none of these difficulties as the name is instantly memorable and the site premise explained before any advertising has even taken place. As such, acquisition of this domain identity could be highly valuable to a company looking to create a dynamic and unique financial services business on the net.”

For more information on Lot 40 or to register to bid at The Ocean Tomo 2008 European Live IP Auction, please contact us directly at +1.312.377.4851 or [email protected].

About IP Business Congress

The IP Business Congress, comprised of IAM magazine’s first-ever CIPO Summit and Ocean Tomo’s Live IP Auction, will be one of the major IP events of 2008 and quite probably the year’s most important gathering of global IP business leaders. All day on 25th June and the morning of 26th June, the CIPO Summit, with a world-class faculty of 70+ speakers, will focus on understanding the roles and responsibilities of the CIPO, and on the afternoon of 26th June, Ocean Tomo will hold its live IP Auction. For more information and to register for the IPBC, please visit www.ipbusinesscongress.com.

About the Ocean Tomo Transaction Practice

Intellectual Property owners seek to balance a variety of financial and business objectives when monetizing their assets including deal structure, price, publicity and marketing, competitive intelligence and expenditure of resources. The Ocean Tomo Transaction Practice offers four primary products and services designed to meet such needs -- Private IP Brokerage, Live Multi-Lot IP Auctions (www.OceanTomoAuctions.com), Patent/Bid-Ask™ (www.PatentBidAsk.com) and The Dean’s List™ Online IP Exchange (www.TheDeansList.com). Each solution is tailored to provide the proper forum and appropriate level of service based on the client’s specific requirements.

Ocean Tomo
Media Contact:
Wendy Chou
+1.718.812.6707
[email protected]

Source: www.businesswire.com