As part of the preparations for the launching of the application process for new TLDs, the ICANN staff has been studying the best ways to protect the rights of trademark owners to discourage malpractices and abuses among those who will apply for their own TLD. This was further discussed on Wednesday during ICANN's meeting in Seoul.

Previously, ICANN has formed the IRT (Implementation Recommendation Team) and subsequently, the IRT has done some research and public consultations to determine the best practices in the industry when it comes to trademark protection. The public consultations have been done online and live in Sydney (35th ICANN meeting), New York and London. The IRT has been drafting ICANN's RPM (rights protection mechanism) since its formation.

The RPM will not only be utilized in the application process. It will be the basis for evaluating a new registry in three stages: pre-launch, launch, and full operations. The core functions of the RPM is to validate existing trademarks and provide all the important data for pre-launch claims or sunrise services.

The pre-launch claims are those that may arise before a new TLD goes into launching and the sunrise service claims may potentially come from trademark owners who are against the registration of their trademark as a domain name in a new TLD.

Moving forward, the IRT aims to put in place a clear and transparent guideline in consistently validating trademarks, as well as a justifiable amount of fee, among others.