Mobile Top Level Domain (mTLD), the registry in charge of the .mobi domain name, will announce details of the registration process for .mobi addresses at the 3GSM conference in Barcelona today.

Applications will begin on May 22nd and continue through to late August, according to mTLD. The first eight days of the period, however, will be set aside for those companies that have sponsored the new domain, according to mTLD general manager Neil Edwards. He added that the registry has tried to avoid problems encountered by Eurid, which has been criticised for creating a costly and over-bureaucratic application process for the emerging .eu domain.

"We have tried to make it easy for those with trademarks to register their name, for resellers to sell names and to ensure an optimal protection scheme, [to discourage] cybersquatters and domain name speculators," Edwards explained.

Those wishing to apply for a domain corresponding to an existing, established brand can do so during an initial sunrise period. They will need to go in person to a registrar, where they will be asked to produce documents proving they own a trademark corresponding to the domain sought. The application will then be checked thoroughly, said Edwards.

When registrations are eventually opened for all, cybersquatters should be put off by a higher than average registration fee, while a trademark dispute period will follow immediately after the sunrise period, where complaints can be submitted to World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) free of charge, he added.

"I have spent time with .com when it grew from a small registry to the biggest in the world, so I've seen what works and what hasn't," Edwards said.

mTLD also released a consultative document last week designed to help the web developer community create content for the mobile internet. The Web Browsing Guide, the first in a series to be published by mTLD, provides rules and W3C-compliant best practices for content developers and website owners to ensure that websites are easily accessible to any mobile device, according to mTLD.

"[Our backers] have formed a number of steering committees and we've taken all the intellectual property they've [generated] through theses groups to turn out a guide [for the mobile web]," Edwards explained.