It's not unheard of for entities to register "something.com" as a trademark to protect it and hold it to ransom before they or anyone else owns it. So someone using a name just cause it could be a domain name or the other way around is acceptable and comes down to how the names is used for trade. That is where the protection is derived from, the trade.
One interesting example could be Booking.com that are parading around as the brand "booking.yeah" at the moment. The difference being that that domain doesn't even exist yet, it could be confused as one and it may well exist one day. However they are similar in that they have a trademark for "booking.yeah" for hotels - but someone else may want to use the name "booking.yeah" for a book shop or something else - but should that situation arise, should booking.com be stripped of their goodwill in the phrase "booking.yeah" so that the bookshop owner can use the domain when they snag it, or is it more realistic to assume that both the bookshop and the hotel booking website can coexist? I would plump for coexistence.
Things aren't cut and dry, there are many nuances and the system is designed to allow companies with the same name to coexist, so I'm not sure that a domain ame gets special dispensation just cause it COULD be a domain name. One can't be afforded protection until they trade under a name, but once they do then I would argue that their protection extends only to what they trade (and similar goods/services in the territory in which they trade).
That's my take anyway imho.