The Singaporean law firm of Rajah and Tann directs me to more coverage of the trademark application for .SG, brought by SGNIC, the domain manager of Singapore’s .sg.  Concerned parties have until January 25 to oppose the application. Maybe ICANN should.

Folks quoted in the article raise the concern that the domain manager will use the registration against domain name registrants.  I can’t rule that out but if I had to speculate, I would say that SGNIC will use the registration to police the name distribution channel.

As an aside, there is a quote to the effect that it is unprecedented for a domain manager to own a registration for the country code.  Yes, with an asterisk.  Dot TV, the manager for .TV, owns a U.S. registration for a DOT TV logo (which disclaims the words DOT and TV).