How to validate your trade marks with the Trademark Clearinghouse
Enhance your brands protection online through the TradeMark Clearinghouse (TMCH)
11 Sept 2024
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Trade marks protect rights. Domains protect online control. If you are responsible for your organisation’s brand protection, you need both.
A Gap Analysis compares your trade mark portfolio with your domain portfolio to identify where protection is aligned, where it is incomplete and where third-party activity may create exposure. If those portfolios do not mirror each other, you may be leaving your brand open to cybersquatting, impersonation and avoidable enforcement costs. Our approach is built on the principle that your domain and trade mark portfolios should align to protect your brand properly online.
In practical terms, a domain is the online extension of a trade mark. That means online brand protection is not only about the marks you have registered, but whether your business also controls the domains that customers, partners and bad actors will associate with your brand.
A Gap Analysis gives legal teams a clear answer to one important question: does your online footprint reflect the rights that your business actually owns?
It shows you where matching domains are already secured, where important registrations are missing, where ownership is uncertain and where third-party domains are identical to your brand. It also helps prioritise what needs to happen next.
That last point matters. The goal is not to register everything everywhere. The goal is to make deliberate, risk based decisions about the jurisdictions, domain extensions and brand strings that matter most.
Trade mark rights can support enforcement, but they do not automatically give an organisation control of the corresponding domain names. If a matching domain has not been secured, someone else can register it. If a domain exists in the wrong internal or external name, a former agency, a local distributor, a legacy entity or an individual employee, the organisation may not have the control it assumes it has.
This is why Gap Analysis belongs on the legal agenda. It helps transform a fragmented mix of registrations, ownership records and launch plans into a coherent online brand protection strategy.
If you own the trade mark but not the relevant domain, you create an opening for cybersquatters and opportunistic third parties. Prevention is usually faster, cheaper and less disruptive than recovery.
A missing or mismanaged domain can be exploited for impersonation, phishing, counterfeit activity, fake recruitment, diverted traffic or reputational harm. By the time the issue is escalated to legal, the damage may already be public.
Late discovery almost always costs more. Instead of securing the right registration at the right time, legal teams may end up coordinating evidence gathering, registrar or registry engagement, outside counsel, takedowns and internal stakeholder management.
Our Gap Analysis does more than hand you a spreadsheet, it gives you a framework for action. We classify findings so you can see where domains are available, uncertain or at risk.
“Available” means the domain can still be assessed for defensive or strategic registration.
“Uncertain” means eligibility, ownership or the right next step needs closer review.
“At risk” means a third-party registration or other issue already creates material exposure.
That gives you a practical way to prioritise decisions, allocate budget and focus attention where it matters most. The structure is central to how we help you move from visibility to action, advising what to secure now, what to investigate further and what may require escalation, recovery or enforcement.
This is where strategy matters. We do not tell you to buy every domain in every jurisdiction. We help you decide what is commercially justified, legally sensible and just as importantly, what is not worth registering.
For some brands, the priority will be .com and the country code extensions that support key markets. For others, the focus may be product launches, high abuse extensions, distributor risk or specific jurisdictions with greater brand exposure.
For example, if a company relies on an EU trade mark, legal should be able to understand whether the corresponding .eu domain and relevant member state domains are secured or consciously deprioritised.
The issue is not volume. It is alignment. The principle of matching domain coverage to trade mark protection is exactly what Gap Analysis is designed to address.
This is where many providers stop. We do not.
As Lexsynergy are founded and still owned by lawyers, we approach a Gap Analysis as part of a broader legal, domain and online brand protection strategy, not as a standalone report. We do not just show you the gaps. We advise you on what to register, what not to register, what to investigate further and where enforcement or recovery may be the better route.
Then, if you want us to, we carry that strategy out for you.
That means we can secure the matching domains, consolidate registrations, help resolve ownership issues, support recovery and enforcement steps where needed and manage your domain portfolio as part of a broader corporate domain and online brand protection strategy.
In other words, this is not “here is your report, good luck.” It is “here is your report, here is your strategy and here is how we can implement it with you.”
The best time is before a problem becomes visible, urgent or expensive.
That usually means after new trade mark filings, before a launch or rebrand, ahead of entering new jurisdictions, after an acquisition, when domains are spread across multiple registrars or internal owners, or after a phishing or impersonation incident. It is also worth doing whenever legal suspects that the domain portfolio no longer mirrors the trade mark portfolio.
If you have never conducted a Gap Analysis, the best time is now.
If you are in legal, you are often judged on what you prevented, not only on what you litigated.
A Gap Analysis helps you identify where rights and registrations are aligned, where they are not and what action will reduce future cost and risk. It also supports better governance by giving legal, IT, marketing and leadership a shared view of online brand exposure. In other words, it turns scattered portfolio information into a defensible online brand protection strategy.
Most importantly, it helps you move from uncertainty to strategy.
If your trade mark portfolio and domain portfolio are managed separately, there is a strong chance that risk is being managed separately too. That is how costly gaps stay hidden.
Our free Gap Analysis gives you a clear view of what is protected, what is uncertain and what is at risk. From there, we help you decide what to do next and can implement that strategy for you as part of a managed corporate domain and brand protection solution.
For businesses that want to prevent squatting, reduce enforcement costs and make smarter domain decisions, it is a practical first step with no barriers to entry.
Book your free Gap Analysis with Lexsynergy and turn unseen online risk into a clear, defensible action plan.
A Gap Analysis compares an organisation’s trade mark portfolio with its domain portfolio to identify missing registrations, uncertain ownership positions and potential online infringement or brand abuse risk.
Because trade mark rights do not automatically give an organisation control of the matching domain names. A Gap Analysis shows whether the business’s online footprint actually reflects its legal rights.
No. The purpose of a Gap Analysis is not to register everything everywhere. It is to identify where registration is strategically justified based on brand value, market presence, launch plans, abuse risk and enforcement cost.
It can uncover missing matching domains, inconsistent country coverage, third-party registrations, legacy ownership problems and gaps that may expose the business to cybersquatting, impersonation or higher enforcement spend.
No. Any organisation with a meaningful online presence can benefit, especially if domains are managed across multiple teams, countries, agencies or third parties. The more fragmented the ownership picture, the more useful the analysis becomes.
Common triggers include new trade mark filings, brand launches, rebrands, international expansion, acquisitions, portfolio consolidation and any situation where domains and trade marks are managed in separate silos.
What happens after a Lexsynergy’s Gap Analysis?
After the analysis, we advise you on what to register, what not to register, what to investigate further and whether recovery or enforcement is needed. We can then implement that strategy for you by securing matching domains, helping resolve ownership issues, consolidating registrations where needed and supporting the ongoing alignment of your domain and trade mark portfolios.
Enhance your brands protection online through the TradeMark Clearinghouse (TMCH)
What is the difference and which should you be using?
Portfolio gaps have a habit of appearing at the worst possible moment: just before a launch, during a rebrand, after an acquisition or when entering a new country. Legal may have cleared the mark, only to discover that the matching domain is unavailable or not under the company’s control.
Trade marks and domains are often managed by different teams, budgets or providers. That separation can hide inconsistencies for years. A Gap Analysis brings both portfolios into one view, so legal can see where ownership, renewals and control no longer line up.
Fed up with hidden fees and long response times from your domain registrar?