Holders of registered trademarks have been warned to secure .africa domain names before a “sunrise” phase ends in early June, or risk high legal costs later.

“There are innumerable complexities involved in trying to wrest intellectual property away from those who would have snapped up domain names after the sunrise phase,” the ZA Central Registry, which has responsibility for the .africa generic top-level domain, warned on Tuesday.

The .africa domain will be opened up to everyone from 4 July, meaning those that haven’t moved to protect their trademarks could risk losing their domains and facing the prospect of legal action to secure them.

“During the general availability phase, domain names will be registered on a first-come, first-served basis. Therefore, trademark owners who do not secure their .africa domain names during the current 60-day sunrise phase may not be able to guarantee the availability of their .africa domain names from general availability onwards,” ZACR said in a statement.

“The very real possibility of opportunists registering one’s trademarks exists and it is best prevented by the simple act of applying now for .africa domain names that match registered or validated intellectual property,” said ZACR CEO Lucky Masilela in the statement.

He said Africa is home to world-leading brands. Brand Africa has at least six homegrown African brands included in its global listing of the top 100 most valuable brands, he added.

During the sunrise period, which runs from 4 April to 2 June 2017, trademark owners can secure domain names matching their registered trademarks before .africa is made available to the public. A Trade Mark Clearing House must first validate the registered trademarks.

Alternatively, and specifically for the .africa top-level domain, a system called Mark Validation System will be used to validate trademarks which are not yet registered, company names, trust names and common law trademarks (as well as registered trademarks for trademark proprietors who do not wish to validate through the clearing house).

The sunrise period will be followed by a landrush period of five phases running from 5 June to 30 June 2017. This registration is open to everyone around the world without any restriction, but the registration is sold at a higher price than the regular price.