The Advertiser (Louisiana) has an interesting article called Web search can help avoid trademark violation. The article talks about the issues, but is a little thin on explaining HOW TO do it. I guess I could give a few pointers as my second TIBBIT.
While I recommend having an intellectual property attorney perform a comprehensive trademark search for your proposed trademark, you should (to save time and money) eliminate problem trademarks by performing your own cursory trademark search. Once you have eliminated the bad trademark choices, you need to follow up with an experienced attorney to have a comprehensive trademark search performed. I cannot stress this enough…do it right! It isn’t worth having to toss a year or two of good will out the window because you did a simple trademark search and ran with it when an attorney would have found additional prior trademarks which have bearing on your rights.
Remember: TRADEMARK RIGHTS ARE BASED ON USE. A senior user has rights…you need to determine what rights they have and decide whether or not you should proceed or pick a different trademark. For this you need to consult with an experienced intellectual property attorney.
Enough reminders….on with the resources:
1. Federal trademarks. Registered, pending and dead federal trademarks can be found by searching the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s databases. Those dead (abandoned, cancelled) trademarks are relevant! Remember: TRADEMARK RIGHTS ARE BASED ON USE…if they are still using the trademark, even though they don’t have a registration anymore…they have SOME rights.
2. State trademarks. Without resorting to a commercial database, there really isn’t an easy way to search state trademarks for free on the Internet. You can check state by state to see if a particular Secretary of State has their trademark registry on-line (few do). I use this list of state Secretary of State web sites when I am looking for corporate or trademark information.
3. Common-law trademarks. Perform a quick Internet search using your search engine of choice for your proposed trademark and the goods or services you are planning on using the trademark on. Google Images search is another good resource (you can actually use Google Images as a patent search tool for simple inventions).
Again, once you have eliminated the obvious losers, consult with an attorney and have a full blown trademark search performed.
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