Trademark - LGS 311 - Intellectual Property - Guides at Milner Library, Illinois State University

Searching for Trademarks

Search Strategies

Before applying for a trademark registration, it's important to do a clearance search to make sure your mark is available to register.

Start with a narrow focus, then broaden your search.
- This can help save you time because it can immediately uncover any clearly conflicting trademarks.
- As you continue, search for trademarks that are almost exactly the same, then very similar, then less similar.
Omit results you've already reviewed.
- The broader the scope, the more results will be returned. To avoid reviewing the same results twice, exclude trademarks from your previous searches using the AND NOT operator. (For example, add AND NOT 1 at the end of your second query to exclude trademarks that came up in your first query. Add AND NOT 2 at the end of your third query to exclude trademarks that came up in your second query, etc.)
Only narrow by goods and services if absolutely necessary
- If a search query returns an unmanageably large number of results, one option to help you find the most relevant trademarks is to narrow them by coordinated class.
- Narrowing by goods or services is risky because you could easily miss trademarks that conflict with yours.
Focus mainly on live trademarks
- Only live trademark applications and registrations can prevent your trademark from being registered. To filter your search results, uncheck the “dead” checkbox under the status filter.
- However, don’t completely disregard trademarks on dead applications and registrations. While they can’t bar your registration, they can present other legal problems if they’re still being used in commerce.
As you search, evaluate whether trademarks in the database may conflict with yours by being confusingly similar or related to yours (see common refusals for likelihood of confusion). Also consider whether your trademark is a strong trademark that is inherently distinctive.