ICANN launched its Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH) Tuesday, which...
ICANN launched its Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH) Tuesday, which allows trademark holders to register their brand names in preparation for the rollout of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) later this year. The clearinghouse is operated by Deloitte and IBM, ICANN said…
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(http://bit.ly/YzwmEw). Trademark holders can register with the clearinghouse, giving them the “opportunity to proactively register domain names which match their trademarks ahead of wider public availability,” the release said. Within the first 90 days of each gTLD launch, trademark holders registered with the clearinghouse will be notified when any other entity registers a domain name that matches registrants’ trademarks. “Recording marks into the TMCH is the most effective way to ensure that IP is appropriately safeguarded across all of the new web extensions that will go live this year,” Deloitte Partner Jan Corstens said in a statement. Dan Jaffe, executive vice president-government relations of the Association of National Advertisers, told us that “a number” of ANA members that have interacted with the clearinghouse “believe the system is untested and unready.” During an ANA conference last week, Jaffe said ICANN should create a limited preventive registration mechanism, which would allow trademark holders to register their brand names and commonly abused similar names across all registries for a limited fee.