Picture from here, courtesy of Daniel Tobing (thank you!)

I’m an experienced Domains Portfolio Manager and recently I enrolled our brand to TMCH.

What is TMCH?

The Trademark ClearingHouse (TMCH) is an ICANN established entity with the purpose of helping brand owners to safeguard domain names matching their brand.

TMCH offers mainly 2 services:

  1. The ability to register a domain name for a TLD in “sunrise period” (e.g. nTLDs being created and not generally available yet)
  2. Notifications of third parties registering your brand name under other TLDs

The point 2. being only notifications (but not acting as blocking) makes it only informational and not a killer feature, if you want my opinion.

In addition, having the mark registered in TMCH helps with disputes procedures like URS and URDP (since mark is already verified against ICANN).

Should I use TMCH?

In practice, according to me, TMCH usefulness is limited and not necessarily a “must have” in your toolbox, but a good “nice to have”.

I maintain this statement, even considering its relatively low cost ($155 per year).

At some point, if you’re getting some interest in acquiring a nTLD that is in sunrise period, maybe it’s time to enroll :)

Enrolling in TMCH

In order to enroll in TMCH, you need a service mark as a prerequisite. It means that your brand name is protected by one of the Intellectual Property Organizations like WIPO or EUIPO.

I assume that you have one, since it should be part of your brand protection well beyond the subject of domain names.

Register an account in TMCH

Next you need to register for an account on TMCH, follow this link for signup form. Note that you should preferably register with the company domiciliated in the same country than your service mark.

TMCH register

On the second part, check the “Holder” and fill the remaining fields.

TMCH register

After registering, you will receive by email an username in the form of u12345 along with a password. TMCH should accept the registration under 10 days, but in practice it was accepted during the same day for me.

Register your mark

Having the account accepted makes you able to now “claim” your mark.

In order to do that, click on “Submit Mark” button.

TMCH claim mark

You will need access to your WIPO/EUIPO registration (use the search like EUIPO search to find your service mark application number and date)

Few more details are required in the bottom section.

TMCH claim mark

Download the “Declaration of Proof of use” template, sign it then upload it as PDF. Provide also another proof of use (e.g. screenshot of website).

Then you will need to pay $155 (for one year).

And you’re done with submitting your mark and now need to wait for mark being accepted.

Mark new

^ The mark immediately appears as “New” and “New” in the mark list.

TMCH mark status journey

TMCH announces up to 4 weeks for validation, but again my experience was less than 2 days.

First the mark application will move to “verified”:

Mark new

Then the Proof Of Use of the mark will move into “Valid”:

Mark new

If you ever got rejected because you filled wrong informations, you would still benefit from 35 days to edit your mark declaration and resubmit:

Fix TMCH mark submission

Using the TMCH for registering TLDs in sunrise period

The TMCH verified mark gives you access to a Signed Mark Data (SMD) that you can use to register TLDs in sunrise period.

In practice, you would have to provide the SMD file to the registrar when registering and it will be passed to registry for verification.

Using the TMCH for notifications

On the TMCH website, go to “Services” and configure your notifications under “Notification Management”.

Using the TMCH for disputes

I don’t have experience with disputing domains with TMCH, so I can’t tell how much it helps. but it is supposed to.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed and learned more about why and how to use TMCH to strenghten your brand.

TMCH is little known service, that can be useful, but that’s really up to you to decide.