How to Check if a Trademark is Already Registered? | STOPfakes.gov (2024)

FAQs

How do you check if a trademark is already taken? ›

You may also conduct a trademark search by visiting the USPTO's Public Search Facility or by visiting a Patent and Trademark Resource Center near you. These resources are free to the public. For additional assistance, you may wish to hire an experienced trademark attorney.

To look up trademarks for free, you can use the Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) on the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) website. You can also visit the USPTO's Public Search Facility or a Patent and Trademark Resource Center near you.

Many startups and small businesses are surprised to learn that multiple businesses can trademark the same name. So long as the businesses offer different goods or services, they can both qualify for trademark protection. This is because consumers are not likely to be confused that the brands come from the same company.

Yes, there can be, provided they are registered in different countries and/or operate in different segments.

Searching the web for your logo will help you find anyone you may have copied, even accidentally. Simply do a reverse image search on Google to see if anyone has posted this mark online before. This also helps supplement steps one and three with more images similar to your new design.

Conduct a search on the trademark office's website in your country to determine if the logo has been registered as a trademark. Trademark databases typically contain information about registered logos, including the owner, registration number, and application details.

In the United States, a trademark can last forever, so long as it is used in commerce and renewed on time every ten years. To renew a registered trademark, the owner must file the maintenance documents with the United States Patent Trademark Office (USPTO) and meet certain legal requirements.

Under US trademark law, unregistered trademarks are protected under common law, although they have less protection than registered trademarks. In contrast to federal registration, common law trademarks are usually enforceable only within the geographic region or locale where the trademark owner is using it in business.

The letters TM stand for “trade mark” and are a trademark symbol for unregistered trademarks – names, phrases, logos, and slogans – that have not been registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The TM symbol is notice of your ownership of an unregistered trademark.

What happens if you don't register a trademark? ›

Not registering a trademark comes with legal and financial risks. A competitor can register your trademark for their business and take it from you. You will be forced to rebrand. You will have limited trademark rights at best.

To search the USPTO's trademark database, go to TESS and choose a search option. If you are searching for a name, you can use the trademark name search. If you are searching a design mark, such as a logo, you will first need to look up your design code using the USPTO's Design Search Code Manual.

Although you can apply for trademark protection for your name and logo concurrently, each is considered a separate mark. As such, each mark (i.e. your standard character mark and your design mark) requires its own application.

However, if the two products are not related to one another and not likely to cause any confusion, then trademark law will not prevent the two companies from using the same name. Put differently, if the same name is registered in different trademark classes, this does not give rise to an infringement claim.

You can check the status of your application online at any time by using the Trademark Status and Document Retrieval (TSDR) system.

The grounds for trademark cancellation can include issues such as non-use of the trademark, abandonment, fraud in the application process, genericness, or other factors that render the trademark registration invalid.

Trademarks do not have expiration dates.

Trademarks last as long as they are used in commerce to brand products or services. Trademarks do not have expiration dates and do not expire after a set period of time, unlike patents and copyrights. So, any trademark can last as long as it is used to represent a brand.