The answer, of course, is "yes, but It's a good idea for you to do a search before you adopt a mark. Chances are, your first choice or two will be taken, so a little investment in your time now will save you a lot of time and money later search. There's no point in paying us to file an application to register a trademark if it's already registered and you could have found it in a few minutes work, and if you can knock out all the "easy" ones, you will get much more value from a professional search later on. There's more than a little art to searching, not to mention years of experience, so don't feel too bad at missing something a professional might find. Once you've done the preliminary search and are comfortable with your findings, we still recommend that you have us do a full trademark search on the mark you have finally settled on assuming, as is most often the case, that you will have knocked out half a dozen or more unavailable marks. Start your trademark search on the US Patent and Trademark Office's "TESS" Trademark Electronic Search System database. Start at the USPTO Trademarks homepage and click on "TESS - Search Trademarks " - that's the first icon in the "Tools" section. We can't give you a direct link to TESS from here, because of the design of the USPTO website - if we tried to link directly to the search page you'd get a message that your session had timed out and you'd have to go through the main page anyway. Note that the TESS system only allows so many people at a time, and you will have a limited time to respond. If you wait too long between actions, you will be signed off the system and you will have to start over again. It's a good idea to always do something every few minutes even if it's just to look at the next record or review the list of "hits". That gives you the most flexibility, and I'm never quite sure just what the search system is doing when I use the other two options I should say I use the "New User" form if I'm just going to enter a serial or registration number. Enter the mark in the "Search Term" box, click "Submit Query" and see if you get a dead knockout right away. Don't forget to enclose any phrases in quotes - if you're searching for the mark PURE FLEX, you will get 18, hits if you just type those two words, versus five hits for "PURE FLEX" with quotes around it. That's because just PURE FLEX no quotes is the same as "PURE OR FLEX" - it will return any trademark record with either word anywhere in the listing. That is, you're looking for marks which might be confusingly similar to the mark you have chosen, not just those which are identical to it. Make sure you're searching for all of the obvious variations in your first check, especially in multi-part marks - in the search above, for example, check "PURE-FLEX", "PURE FLEX" and "PUREFLEX". The free form search page has a "plurals" box - change it to "yes" to search for obvious grammatical plurals. Don't combine the plurals option with truncation characters. Look for partial matches. If the word is multi-part, your first check would be for the entire mark "PURE FLEX" OR "PUREFLEX"but then try each part separately and in combination: Maybe "PURE-" is too big a prefix - try "PUR-" instead. Would "PURIFLEX" be a problem? Trademarks are notorious for "clever" typography - don't get me started on all the Kountry Kottages out there. Look for obvious misspellings and variations:. Matches a single non-blank character. FLEX would find PURAFLEX but not PURFLEX or PURAXFLEX. The TESS system uses the usual "AND", "OR", "NOT" boolean operators, and I'll assume you're familiar with them. I seldom use any others in this system, electronic you might find "SAME" and "ADJ" or "NEAR" of some use. SAME means that the two parts are used in the same paragraph in the listing. The SAME operator might be useful if you searched for "[IC] SAME glasses[GS]" - that would limit out the situation where someone sold batteries electronic class and drinking glasses in class ADJ and NEAR might be useful in some circumstances - they mean that not only must the terms be in the same trademark, but they must be next to each other or within x words of each other, if you search a number to the operator - ADJ2, NEAR3. They're essentially the same, except trademark "ADJ" implies "in the same order", and "NEAR" is order independent. If you search "PURE AND FLEX" you get only marks which include the phrase "PURE AND FLEX" which probably is none of them. Once you've got your search set for the mark and its variations, you can try narrowing it down if there are an unusable number of hits oversay. Be very careful about this, however - you don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Trademark, I'd try narrowing the search by field, so I'm not getting any distractions like the mark appearing in product descriptions, addresses, etc. You can do this by appending a "field code" in brackets after a search term. Thus, XEROX[ON] would return all marks owned by Xerox, because "ON" is the field code for "Owner Name". Use the [BI] field code when searching for words in a mark - this covers the word mark, translation and "pseudo mark" fields. I do not use the [FM] full mark code system it's not a very useful field. For that matter, system [FM] search for "PURE-flex" would not find "PUREflex", or vice versa. You will australia want to narrow your search to marks for goods and services which might be competitive with yours. This technique has some validity, but you should only do it if australia cannot reduce the "hits" to a manageable number by focusing the search terms first. The reason for this advice is that "famous" marks have a much broader range of protection than ordinary marks - if you searched for "Xerox", and limited your search for Ice Cream, you probably would not get any hits. That does not mean you are clear to name your new ice cream "Xerox Chip". On the other hand, if you chose a more common name, say "Hercules", you would get thousands of hits. At that point you could narrow the search to, say food products, because no one of these many mark owners for "Hercules" marks could claim they have any exclusive rights to "Hercules" beyond their own markets. The [IC] field code can be useful in some cases, but I'd be careful. International Class is used for the convenience of the USPTO, but it does not affect likelihood of confusion. For example, eyeglasses are in classbut retail services selling eyeglasses are in classand grinding glass for eyeglasses is in class A search in [IC] would miss the identical mark used for an eyeglass store, which I would argue would be very relevant. Using this code, a search for, say, wine class could be entered as "[CC]" and get both class and also the other related food classes, retail sales of food, restaurant services, and so on. At the very least, do a search first in the USPTO's Acceptable Descriptions manual and find out all of the possible classes before you do the search by class. Personally, I prefer [GS] searches for particular goods and services. Again, you can use the Descriptions Manual to get an idea of the possible classes. That might give you a broader field of search - electronic example, "eyeglasses"[GS] won't find "sunglasses" or "lenses" even just "glasses". That said, be careful using [GS] limitations because you can't be sure that the registration you're looking for is using the word you picked - if you look for "hot dogs", you will miss marks for "wieners", "sausages", "frankfurters", or just "processed meat products", all of which would be important. Select a record from the list of "hits" and click on any entry except "TARR". You will get a screen that looks like this:. For example, the mark australia registration number 3, is two Chinese Characters, with a tea leaf in a cup on a diamond: You can click on the "TARR" button to see a list of status actions, "ASSIGN" to see if there are any assignments on record, "TDR" to see images of any documents filed and "TTAB Status" to see any records of the Trademark Trial and Appeals Board pertaining to the record. You can page through the list using the "Next Doc" button at the top or bottom of the page. Some of the searchable fields in the TESS database can be searched numerically by value, as well as through the usual search codes. The field codes for these fields are:. Your mileage may vary as to where it is on the keyboard - if you can't figure out how to type it, just cut and paste from this web page. To make matters more confusing, this method reverses the usual search syntax of " value [ field ]" so, for any field which permits numeric searching, like the date fields, the form of the search query is:. You'd enter the following query in the free form search box:. Note that this search would give you just what you asked for - abandonments after January 1st - so it would not include any application abandoned on January 1st. You don't really need to use the numeric search if you just want to search for a date within a single month or year, though - you could also just use a truncation character in a regular-type search. So, for all applications abandoned inyou'd enter:. The numeric search allows searching between values, or you can truncate the date at the month, too. If you wanted all applications abandoned in April,for example, there would be two ways to do it:. You could also use this to limit your search to all search which are either live, or were abandoned or canceled no more than three years ago assuming you're searching in Novemberwhich is when I'm writing this:. I included australia "LIVE"[LD] search term because, obviously, live records won't have abandonment or cancellation dates. Home Intellectual Property Patents Trademarks Copyrights. Our clients often ask if they can do preliminary trademark searches themselves. Always remember to "logout" when you're done. Try the obvious first Enter the mark in the "Search Term" box, click "Submit Query" and see if you get a dead knockout right away. Usually that just returns too many hits to deal with, but it's worth a shot. Expand the field of search Once you're convinced you haven't found a direct knockout, go a bit further afield. Look for obvious misspellings and variations: Also look for oddball abbreviations and soundalikes - any mark with "EASY" should always be checked with "EZ" and "E-Z", "cutie" could be "QT", "R" for "are" "ToysRUs" etc. FLEX would find PURAFLEX but not PURFLEX or PURAXFLEX Combining terms The TESS system uses the usual "AND", "OR", "NOT" boolean operators, and I'll assume you're familiar with them. PURE OR FLEX would find all of these, plus "PURE ENJOYMENT" and "FLEX TIME" and any other listing with either word in it anywhere Note: Narrow the search to reduce distractions Once you've got your search set for the mark and its variations, you can try narrowing it down if there are an unusable number of hits oversay. See below for a special note on using the date fields as search terms. Review the records you found The TESS system will return a summary list of records found. There are six columns on the page: Record number - the results page will list up to 50 records. If the search returned more than 50 records, you can get the next list by clicking the "next list" button at the top or bottom of the page. Serial number - this is the serial number of the application which resulted in the record Registration number - if the record is for a mark which was registered, the registration number will be listed here. Pending applications, and those which were abandoned or successfully opposed before registration, would have a blank in this column Word Mark - the word portion of the mark. This column would be blank for a pure design mark or some other mark which does not have a word component such as a color, scent, sound, etc. You will get a screen that looks like this: The data on this page might include: The first item on the screen is an image of the mark. For pure word marks, this will just be the mark in large letters. For design marks it will be a drawing of the logo. Word Mark - the word portion of the mark. Translation - if the mark is not in English, there will be a translation of the mark and, if it is not in Latin characters, a transliteration of the mark what it sounds in English. Pseudo Mark - if the mark is a misspelling of some other word, or something like that, the USPTO may code a "pseudo mark". For example, if the mark were "2 L8" the pseudo mark would be "too late". Description of the Mark - if it isn't obvious from the drawing Goods and Services - a list of all of the goods and services, grouped by International class IC. The US class es will be listed next - the US classification system is essentially meaningless, a holdover from past times. Standard Characters Claimed - this means that the mark as shown system not have to be in the specific typography which appears in the image. Mark Drawing Code - in this case, "standard characters". This was previously called "typed drawing". Other possibilities are design-only, design-plus-words, stylized characters where the typography does matterand others colors, sounds, etc. Design Search Code - If the mark includes a design element that is, something other than merely stylized lettersthen the design element will be described by one or more "design codes". These codes are six-digit numbers, arranged in three system groups. The first two digits are a general type of design - for example, 05 for "Plants", 11 for "Household Utensils", 26 for "Geometric figures and solids" or 28 for "Inscriptions in various characters". The USPTO has a " Design Search Code Manual " available on their website. The design search codes for this registration are: The owner may still be using the mark, and has failed to follow the required procedures to keep the application or registration alive. Disclaimer - if part of the mark is merely descriptive, the owner might have had to expressly disclaim any rights in that part of the mark, except as part of the mark. For example, a registration for "Hercules Ice Cream" would have to disclaim "Ice Cream" apart from the mark as shown. Affidavits - Section 8 continued useSection 15 incontestability or Section 9 renewal Renewals - registrations need to be renewed every 10 years 20 years for marks registered before November If the registration was renewed, the date will be here You can click on the "TARR" button to see a list of status actions, "ASSIGN" to see if there are any trademark on record, "TDR" to see images of any documents filed and "TTAB Status" to see any records of the Trademark Trial and Appeals Board pertaining to the record. Don't forget to "logout" when you're done, so others can access the search. Special Note on Searching in Date Fields Some of the searchable fields in the TESS database can be searched numerically by value, as well as through the usual search codes. The field codes for these fields are: To make matters more confusing, this method electronic the usual search syntax of " value [ field ]" so, for any field which permits numeric searching, like the date fields, the form of the search query is: You'd enter the following query in the free form search box: So, for all applications abandoned inyou'd enter: If you wanted all applications abandoned in April,for example, there would be two ways to do it:
How to Use the Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS)
How to Use the Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS)
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The early letters in this collection are those of Caroline Louisa (Gordon) Hackett, mother of James Gordon Hackett, with various members of her family including a sister who had settled in Cherokee County, Alabama, and James Byron Gordon, later a general in the Confederate Army.
Jan shared her spinning during Patterns of our Lives, but Ellen had some content to share.
The early letters in this collection are those of Caroline Louisa (Gordon) Hackett, mother of James Gordon Hackett, with various members of her family including a sister who had settled in Cherokee County, Alabama, and James Byron Gordon, later a general in the Confederate Army.