This wouldn't be a simple clearool lock, as it would lock the element for all branches.
A simple approach would be a cleartool checkout -reserved, but that owuld prevent checking on other branches as well.
That leaves you with a preop checkout trigger, using the trigger environment variables CLEARCASE_BRTYPE :
cleartool mktrtype -c "Prevent checkout on a branch" -element -all -preop checkout -execwin "ccperl \\shared\path\to\triggers\lock_on_branch.bat" LOCK_ON_BRANCH
The script will use:
CLEARCASE_XPN
(All operations; element triggers only) Same as CLEARCASE_ID_STR, but prepended with CLEARCASE_PN and CLEARCASE_XN_SFX values, to form a complete VOB-extended path name of the object involved in the operation.
CLEARCASE_BRTYPE
(All operations that can be restricted by branch type) Branch type involved in the operation that caused the trigger to fire. In a rename operation, the old name of the renamed branch type object.