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TRADEMARK SEARCH |
| Trademark search we offer, which goes considerably
beyond the trademark
search (USPTO) available on the Web site of the United States Patent
and Trademark Office, is provided by an outside firm chosen for its expertise
in the field.
While the USPTO review is unquestionably the initial step in any trademark-related search, we cannot overemphasize the fact that it is not a complete search. In this regard, it is imperative that you remember that trademark or service mark rights are based, in the first instance, upon actual use in commerce. Use in commerce can be local, statewide, multistate or national and, as a result, searching to determine whether or not a given trademark or service mark is in actual use is a complex task. This task is complicated even further by the fact that the existence of a registration with the United States Patent and Trademark Office with respect to a particular trademark or service mark does not foreclose the issue if someone actually used a confusingly similar mark prior to the time of the registration, at least with respect to the area in which the trademark or service mark was used and in connection with goods or services reasonably related to the goods and services covered by the federal trademark registration. The in-depth search, on the other hand, takes this diversity of use (and the interplay of use and federal registration and state registration) into account. Their review is far more extensive than the review which is obtainable by using the resources of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, which does not purport to take into account actual use unless the user has seen fit to apply for a federal trademark registration. |
