Johnson & Johnson is a global leader engaged in the research, development, manufacture and sale of a broad range of products and services in the healthcare field. Johnson & Johnson, founded in 1886, had sales totaling over $65 billion in 2011. Johnson & Johnson’s common stock has been traded on the New York Stock Exchange since 1944 under the symbol JNJ. Headquartered in New Brunswick, New Jersey, Johnson & Johnson has more than 250 operating companies conducting business in virtually all countries of the world, and employs approximately 118,000 people. Its products can be purchased worldwide and its content is accessible in multiple TLDs, including the .COM gTLD and .CN, .JP, .MX, and .UK ccTLDs.
Johnson & Johnson operates via the following channels:
-MEDICAL DEVICES AND DIAGNOSTICS
-PHARMACEUTICALS
-CONSUMER HEALTH CARE
The potential use of the .JNJ gTLD by these or other business segments will also be driven by Johnson & Johnson’s future business strategies as identified in its annual report and investor filings. See http:⁄⁄www.investor.jnj.com⁄annual-reports.cfm.
The intended future mission and purpose of the .JNJ gTLD is to serve as a trusted, hierarchical, and intuitive namespace provided by Johnson & Johnson and its qualified subsidiaries and affiliates, for its consumers.
Johnson & Johnson is referred to and known to global consumers, professionals, news agencies, and investors as JNJ, one of the oldest and most widely used symbols used to indicate its corporate origin and association with Johnson & Johnson. Johnson & Johnson and its affiliates also own over 100 global trademark registrations for JNJ for a large range of products and services related to the healthcare field.
In 2011, Interbrand ranked the Johnson & Johnson brand as one of the top 100 brands in the world, with an estimated value of over $4 billion. The preservation of this iconic brand is of paramount importance to Johnson & Johnson in all aspects of its operations, including and especially, in the Internet and digital commerce. Operating the JNJ brand as a gTLD will be an important part of its digital strategy in the future.
Recognizing the potential dynamic evolution of the .JNJ gTLD as a trusted brand namespace, Johnson & Johnson has decided to use a wholly-owned subsidiary, Johnson & Johnson Services, Inc. (“JJSI”), as the entity to file this application and bring the .JNJ gTLD to market. JJSI is fully authorized to use the JNJ trademark by Johnson & Johnson. Although JJSI is committed to moving forward with the .JNJ gTLD application, it has not, at the time of filing this application, been able to fully vet and analyze all potential use case options.
Although ICANN has not specifically recognized a .BRAND gTLD specification in the current gTLD application round, it is widely anticipated in the brand owner community that this will become a specialty subset of gTLDs. .JNJ is intended to be one of those .BRAND gTLDs, with the goal of protecting Johnson & Johnson’s online presence and identity, expanding its marketing and promotion efforts, providing a secure channel for online products and services, and offering a platform through which to consolidate many of the intellectual property activities of Johnson & Johnson.
JJSI intends to initially limit the registration and use of domain names within .JNJ to Johnson & Johnson and its qualified subsidiaries and affiliates. This initial limited use will allow JJSI to establish its operations and achieve full sustainability. This limited distribution, coupled with the other requirements set forth in Specification 9 of the template Registry Agreement, is intended to exempt JJSI from its annual Code of Conduct Compliance requirements.
After Stage 3, JJSI will evaluate whether opportunities exist to carry out the business strategy for the .JNJ gTLD through expansion that continues the sustainable operations of the registry through registrations that may or may not be fee-based to parties other than Johnson & Johnson and its qualified subsidiaries and affiliates.
JJSI currently plans a four-stage rollout for the .JNJ gTLD.
Stage 1
The initial stage of implementation of the gTLD will involve Johnson & Johnson registering a limited number of .JNJ second-level domain names.
This initial use will provide Johnson & Johnson’s IT and security personnel the time to run a number of tests to ensure that .JNJ gTLD domain names will provide seamless and secure access, interoperability with various software and Web-based applications, and that there will be unbroken and secure use of all names. This initial allocation will also allow the appropriate Johnson & Johnson staff to coordinate with the internal and external staff responsible for the application, delegation, and setup phases of the .JNJ gTLD to ensure a proper transition from delegation to full operation.
Stage 2
Once all testing has been successfully completed, JJSI will begin allocating domain names in .JNJ for more widespread corporate use. During this same period of time, Johnson & Johnson will begin evaluating strategies to potentially migrate traffic away from some of its current network of second-level domain names, which are registered in a variety of gTLDs and ccTLDs, to .JNJ.
It is in Stage 2 that JJSI will evaluate expanding the operations of the .JNJ gTLD to permit registration by other registrants, such as licensees or other strategic parties. Should an assessment of its expansion strategy lead to a decision to extend registration rights to other parties, this expansion is currently planned to take place during Stage 3. However, any expansion would be conditioned upon a review of Specification 9 (Registry Code of Conduct) set forth in the template Registry Agreement to ensure compliance with JJSI’ business model.
Stage 3
Depending upon the analysis of the evaluations undertaken in Stage 2 Johnson & Johnson may implement the migration of Internet traffic away from some of the gTLDs in which Johnson & Johnson’s domain names are currently registered, and toward the new .JNJ gTLD. It is in this stage that JJSI also may implement its decision to extend registration rights to Johnson & Johnson licensees or strategic parties, depending upon compliance with Specification 9 as noted above. The dates of such expansion are subject to change depending upon business, strategic, and industry factors at the time.
After consideration of the following factors: analysis of Johnson & Johnson’s existing domain name portfolio; internal analysis of marketing initiatives; and the fact that JJSI will have full control over the number of registrations in the .JNJ gTLD namespace, JJSI is confident that the number of domain name registrations will be less than 10,000 in the first five years of operation.
Stage 4
Based on its experience to the end of Year 5, and based on its experience with any expansion implemented in Stage 3, JJSI will assess whether its business plan and expansion strategy should be augmented by extending registration rights to a broader class of licensees and strategic parties. It is anticipated by Johnson & Johnson that changes to the domain name industry, and particularly the impact of .BRAND gTLDs, will take a number of years to be realized and assessed. Any decision to expand the gTLDs beyond corporate, qualified subsidiaries and affiliates, and potential licensees and strategic parties’ use will take into account this experience as well as the technical analysis of potential expansion.
Utilizing current projections based upon Johnson & Johnson’s existing businesses, future business plans, intellectual property strategy, current domain name portfolio, and other strategic factors, JJSI estimates second-level domain name registrations to be in line with the projections set forth in the financial template provided in the response to Question 46 of this application.
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