Trademarks · Clearance searches
Check the name before you spend a dime on it. Or before you spend more.
A clearance search tells you whether a name is worth building something on, before you spend any money on packaging, a domain name, and a filing fee that the USPTO won’t refund.
Because of recent Supreme Court rulings, a trademark owner no longer needs to prove you infringed on purpose in order to take away your profits. Having a documented search done before launching is the best evidence of good faith you can have.
We offer three levels, and the difference between them is how far past the federal register we look. The knockout search scans federal filings for identical and near-identical marks; it answers “is this name obviously taken?” and it is included with every StrongTrademarks filing. A second set of eyes is an attorney reading those federal results with you, for names where the answer is not obvious. The full clearance search goes past the register entirely — state registrations, common-law use, domains — and ends in a written opinion on registrability and conflict risk.
The federal register is the cheap part to search and the smallest part of the risk. A name can be clear at the USPTO and still belong to somebody who has been selling under it for a decade without ever filing. That gap is what the full search is for.