Many law firms and Intellectual Property departments in charge of managing brands and domain names for their customers or businesses must have had that same question: "how do I protect a brand online under the ICANN new gTLD program?" The first potential answer that is usually offered up to an enquirer is: "the Trademark Clearinghouse does that".
The Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH) is not protection mechanism; rather it is a privileged access to registering domain names prior to registry launch.
Read my article on CircleId.