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Brand status is a contractual attribute tied to an approved Specification 13. A TLD should only be labeled as a .Brand when authoritative ICANN agreement data supports that classification.
Brand is a contract fact
A TLD string may resemble a company or trademark, but that is not enough to establish formal .Brand status. For a reference site, the safe source is the registry's ICANN agreement material and approved Specification 13 status.
What Specification 13 does
Specification 13 is an optional registry-agreement specification for qualifying .Brand TLDs. It modifies parts of the contractual framework for registries that meet its requirements.
Keep spec_13_brand separate from the IANA TLD type. They answer different questions.
What not to infer
Do not infer current registration eligibility, corporate ownership, or operating status merely because a string is a recognizable name. Use the current agreement and registry-policy sources for those claims.
Primary sources
These are the primary references this guide is designed around. When implementation data disagrees with editorial copy, the primary source wins.