I finally located some information about submitting registered or otherwise officially recognized trademarks to protect them from use in the new generic top level domains (gTLDs). I found the information at euroDNS.com, not at the ICANN site.

ICANN plans to have a third party own and operate a Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH) for use by new gTLD registrants by October 2012. In theory, it would give companies three months to submit their trademarks to the TMCH before the first new gTLDs (e.g., .NIKE, .IBM) go live in early 2013.

Being listed in the TMCH is important for protection of a company’s brand, including gaining important protections that would otherwise not be available. One such protection is the right for a TM owner to register a domain name consisting of the trademark before registration is available to the general public. For example, the registry that owns .PC will offer Microsoft the right to purchase microsoft.pc before it is available to the public.  Also, those attempting to register a domain name that is in the TMCH will be notified that the proposed domain name is a trademark and cannot be used. Further, TM owners will receive notifications when someone tries to register a domain name that is identical to their trademark.

While there may be a small cost to register TM’s with the TMCH, the benefits are likely to far outweigh the cost, especially in the Internet Age.