.abbvie Domain

18.1 Mission and Purpose of .ABBVIE

Abbott Laboratories ("Abbott") is a global, diversified healthcare company devoted to the discovery, development, manufacture, and marketing of pharmaceuticals, nutritional products, and medical products including devices, diagnostic tests, and instruments. Abbott has sales, manufacturing, research and development, and distribution facilities around the world and is well-recognized for its global reach. Abbott employs over 90,000 people and has an online presence in over 75 countries. Its online content is accessible in the .COM gTLD and also in multiple ccTLDs. A sample of the ccTLDs in which Abbott posts content is as follows: .COM.AR, .COM.AU, .COM.CN, .DK, .FR, .DE, .CO.IN, .IE, JP, .NO, .ES, .CO.UK, .CA, and .US.

On October 19, 2011, Abbott announced that it plans to separate into two publicly traded companies, one in diversified medical products and the other in research-based pharmaceuticals. The research-based pharmaceutical company will include Abbottʹs current portfolio of proprietary pharmaceuticals and biologics, and will be named AbbVie. Both companies will be global leaders in their respective industries. Abbott will be applying for the .ABBVIE gTLD with the intended future mission and purpose of providing a trusted, hierarchical, and intuitive namespace for AbbVie products, services, and information. For more information, see the recent press release http://www.abbott.com/news-media/press-releases/2011-oct19-2.htm.

As a diversified healthcare company, Abbott Laboratories currently manufactures and distributes numerous products around the world. AbbVie's future portfolio of products will include proprietary pharmaceuticals and related goods and services. For more information, see: http://www.abbottinvestor.com/.

As mentioned above, the intended future mission and purpose of the .ABBVIE gTLD is to serve as a trusted, hierarchical, and intuitive namespace for consumers of AbbVie's products and services. Since AbbVie has not yet been legally formed at the time of filing this application, Abbott Laboratories is the designated entity to file this application and bring the .ABBVIE gTLD to market.

Abbott is committed to moving forward with the .ABBVIE gTLD application. However, at the time of filing there is not enough information available to fully analyze and evaluate all potential use case options. Abbott anticipates a limited use of the .ABBVIE gTLD initially, with the possibility of expanding as market information becomes available and AbbVie's digital strategy develops.

Abbott and AbbVie, respectively, will be analyzing and evaluating other .BRAND gTLD applications, as well as general market adoption, to determine short- and long-term potential best-in-class use case options to more effectively serve and enhance AbbVie's future online strategy as a leading research-based pharmaceutical company.

The potential use of the .ABBVIE gTLD by AbbVie and its various business segments will also be driven by AbbVie's future business strategies.

Utilizing current projections based upon Abbott's existing proprietary pharmaceuticals business, AbbVie's potential business plans, and other strategic factors, Abbott estimates that second-level domain name registrations will be in line with the projections set forth in the financial template provided in response to Question 46 of this application.
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