The Trademark Clearinghouse

The Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH) was established to offer trademark owners the possibility to secure their trademark protected names as domain names under the new gTLD model (Corporate: e.g. .bmw or .bosch, regional: .bayern or .africa, generic: .shop or .app, International: e.g. .中信 or .сайт). ICANN has appointed Deloitte in Belgium as validator and IBM as technical operator for the task of managing trademarks in the TMCH.

The TMCH offers trademark owners to register their trademarks in the TMCH and have them checked for relevant domain labels which serve as a basis for domain registrations and monitoring services. The TMCH has two main tasks:

  1. Sunrise Service
  2. Trademark Claims Service

The TMCH started operation on March 26th, 2013. It has two ways of access: Directly for trademark owners, or via a TMCH agent. managed IP is an accredited TMCH agent and consults their clients with respect to trademark protection via the Trademark Clearinghouse.