As we all know, Google has launched its online domain registry earlier in the year. Charleston Road Registry is ready to offer registration of many new top level domains – such as .dad; .fly; .here – each of which has a Google connotation.
The home page caught my eye due to the following sentence – “What will .HOW mean? .EAT? .SOY? We have our ideas, but how you develop your piece of this online real estate is up to you.” Wow! How brilliant that a company like Google recognises and values domains (which are intellectual property) as tangible assets when they have historically been categorised as ‘intangible assets’.
For years I have argued that Intellectual Property is not an intangible asset – it is a value piece of tangible property against which you can raise finance, issue a charge and even mortgage. Perhaps Google has secretly attended one of my seminars…?!