The vastness of the Internet gives cybercriminals lots of opportunities to strike. Anyone can pose as your business or spoof your emails to steal your client’s information. To stay ahead, many Join.Law clients implement domain monitoring. Registering your trademark with the Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH) is a basic domain monitoring service that immediately notifies you if someone registers your mark in any of the new generic top-level domains across any domain registrar.
Trademark Clearinghouse
The TMCH was created in response to the new gTLD program, where hundreds of new domains were added to the domain name space. It considers the rights of trademark holders during the registration process for new domains launched in phases. The Sunrise phase allows a trademark holder to secure a domain name before it becomes available for the general public.
A major benefit of registering your mark is its built-in domain monitoring. There are also a few paths like a cease & desist letter or filing a UDRP complaint you can take to recover domain names infringing on your trademark. The path that you choose will depend on if and how the domain name is being used.
We recommend registering your trademark with the Trademark Clearinghouse so you can be the first to know when someone registers a domain name with your trademark and stop them before they can use it for maligned cybercriminal activities.
