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Working Group Deliberation: This proposal concerns the operation of the Trademark Clearinghouse Database (currently administered by IBM). Where Deloitte operates the Trademark Clearinghouse validation service that checks trademarks submitted for entry into the TMCH against the substantive and other criteria set out in the TMCH Guidelines, IBM operates the resulting TMCH Database with which registry operators and registrars interact, e.g. to offer the Trademark Claims service. In this context, some Working Group members expressed expressed concerns about operational considerations due to there being only a single provider (e.g., one Working Group member noted that several Registry Operators had experienced downtime issues when accessing the TMCH Database). However, the Working Group did not develop a specific recommendation to address this issue.
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