---
name: "trademark_clearance_search"
description: "Clear a proposed brand, product, or company name before launch or filing: scope the mark and its Nice classes, run knockout then comprehensive searches across federal, state, common law, domain, and international sources, score each serious hit for likelihood of confusion with the DuPont factors, and write a clearance note with a risk band and a clear adopt, change, hold, or drop decision. Use when someone wants to clear, vet, or check a name, asks if a name is taken or safe to use, is about to file a trademark, rebrand, or spend money building on a name. Filing itself is left to the owner or counsel."
---

# Trademark Clearance Search

## Purpose

Find out, before money goes into packaging, signage, an app store
listing, or a filing, whether a proposed name is likely to collide
with an earlier mark, and write that finding down in a form a
founder can act on and a lawyer can pick up without redoing the
search.

Clearance answers two separate questions. Can this mark be
registered? And can it be used without inviting a dispute? A name
can pass one and fail the other, so the note answers both.

This skill produces a pre-filing screen and a risk note. It does
not give a legal opinion and it does not file anything.

## Workflow

1. Scope the mark before searching anything.

   - Record the mark exactly as it will be used: wording, spacing,
     capitalisation, and whether a logo or design is part of it.
   - Record the owner, the goods or services in plain words, the
     countries of first use and planned expansion, and whether the
     mark is already in use or still proposed.
   - Map the goods or services to Nice classes: 45 classes in all,
     1 to 34 for goods and 35 to 45 for services. Use
     references/nice-classes-and-relatedness.md for the short map,
     then check the actual wording against the current class
     headings or the USPTO ID Manual.
   - Add the classes a buyer would treat as related, not just the
     home class. A clothing name needs its retail services checked.
     Downloadable software and the hosted version of the same
     product sit in different classes and both need searching.

2. Run the strength screen.

   - Place the mark on the distinctiveness spectrum the USPTO
     uses. Fanciful marks are invented words. Arbitrary marks are
     real words used for unrelated goods. Suggestive marks hint at
     a quality without stating it. Those three are strong.
   - Descriptive marks merely describe an aspect of the goods or
     services. They are weak, and registrable only in limited
     circumstances such as distinctiveness acquired through
     extensive use. Generic terms, the everyday name for the thing
     itself, cannot be registered at all.
   - Flag a descriptive or generic result now. No search result
     fixes a strength problem, and the note should say so plainly.
   - Check what the mark means or sounds like in the main languages
     of the target countries. A translation can be descriptive, can
     collide with a local mark, or can carry a meaning nobody wants
     on a package.

3. Build the variant list, then run the knockout search.

   - Generate the search strings with the bundled tool:
     `bin/clearance_tool.py variants "Proposed Mark"`. It prints
     the exact form, joined and split forms, the dominant word on
     its own, plural and silent e variants, and common sound swaps.
   - Add by hand: misspellings a buyer might type, abbreviations,
     translations, synonyms with the same meaning, and each word of
     a multi word mark searched alone. The dominant element of a
     mark carries the most weight, so it gets its own search.
   - Run the knockout pass in the federal register through the
     USPTO Trademark Search system at tmsearch.uspto.gov, linked
     from uspto.gov/trademarks/search. Search every variant, filter
     to live records first, and look in the home and related
     classes.
   - Treat the knockout result honestly. An identical live mark for
     identical or related goods usually ends the inquiry for that
     name. A clean knockout proves only that no obvious federal
     conflict exists. It is not clearance.

4. Run the comprehensive search.

   - Follow the scope the USPTO itself sets out for a comprehensive
     clearance search: the federal register, the Trademark Official
     Gazette, state trademark and business registries, domain name
     registries, Madrid Monitor, the WIPO Global Brand Database,
     EUIPO and TMview where Europe is in scope, and the open
     internet for unregistered use.
   - Search state registers for the states of operation and planned
     sale, and business name registers where they are searchable.
   - Search common law use hard: web search on each variant,
     marketplaces, app stores, trade directories, news, and social
     platforms. In the United States rights arise from use, so an
     unregistered mark in real use can block a filing and support a
     dispute in its trading area even though it appears in no
     register.
   - Check domains and handles as a separate pass: exact and close
     domains already taken, and the same name in use as a handle or
     store name. A taken domain is not a trademark conflict by
     itself, but the business behind it often is one.
   - Log every search as you go: source, date, strings used,
     filters, and hit count. A search that is not logged did not
     happen for the purposes of the note.

5. Triage the hits, then score the serious ones.

   - Sort hits into three piles: serious (live, similar, related
     goods or services), dismissed (recorded with a one line
     reason), and dead (cancelled, abandoned, or expired).
   - Keep dead marks in the record. A dead registration can sit on
     top of continuing unregistered use, and some dead marks are
     revived. An identical dead mark for identical goods earns a
     common law check before it is dismissed.
   - Score each serious hit with
     `bin/clearance_tool.py score --similarity near --relatedness related --status live-registered --strength strong --channels overlap`
     or by hand against the DuPont checklist in
     references/dupont-factors.md.
   - Work the two questions that decide most cases. First, how
     similar are the marks in sight, sound, meaning, and overall
     commercial impression, judged as wholes, with the dominant
     element weighted heaviest? Second, how related are the goods
     or services, judged by whether buyers would expect one source,
     using the questions in
     references/nice-classes-and-relatedness.md?
   - Bring in the supporting factors only where there is evidence:
     shared trade channels, impulse or low cost buying, fame of the
     earlier mark, a crowded field of similar marks, and any real
     cases of confusion.
   - Remember the two counterweights. Identical marks lawfully
     coexist for unrelated goods and services. And a famous mark
     reaches further: dilution risk can make a distant trade unsafe
     even where confusion is unlikely.

6. Write the clearance note and make the decision.

   - Use references/clearance-note-template.md. One block per
     serious hit, worst first, each with owner, number, status,
     dates, classes, the exact goods or services wording, and the
     similarity and relatedness reasoning in words.
   - Give the mark one overall risk band and one decision: adopt,
     adopt with changes, hold for counsel, or drop.
   - Where changes would cut the risk, name them concretely:
     narrower goods wording, a dropped class, a restyled dominant
     element, a different trading territory, or a different name.
   - List what was not searched. State the limits of the note in
     the note, including that a clean register search does not
     prove a name is free to use.
   - Set a rerun date. Registers move while a brand is being built.
     Rerun the federal and common law passes shortly before filing
     and again before a major launch spend.

## Output Contract

Deliver one clearance note per mark, containing:

- The mark as used, the owner, the goods or services in plain
  words, the proposed Nice classes, the countries in scope, and
  the first use position.
- The strength screen result with the spectrum position and the
  reason for it, plus the foreign language check.
- The full search log: every source searched, the date, the exact
  variant strings, the filters, and the hit counts.
- One scored block per serious hit, with register details, status,
  similarity and relatedness reasoning, a per hit risk band, and
  what would have to change to lower the risk.
- The dismissed hits list, one line each with the reason.
- The overall risk band, the decision (adopt, adopt with changes,
  hold for counsel, or drop), the concrete changes if any, the open
  questions for counsel, and the rerun dates.
- A limits section naming the sources not searched and stating
  that the note is a pre-filing screen, not a legal opinion.

Risk bands used in the note: CRITICAL means an identical or near
identical live mark covers identical or closely related goods, and
the name should be dropped or taken to counsel before any spend.
HIGH means a strong conflict that changes alone probably cannot
fix. MODERATE means a real conflict with a workable path, such as
narrower wording or a coexistence check by counsel. LOW means no
serious conflict found in the sources searched.

## Operating Rules

- Never call a knockout search a clearance search, in the note or
  in conversation. The two differ in scope, and the difference is
  where disputes come from.
- Never say a name is clear, available, or safe in absolute terms.
  Say what was searched, on what date, and what was found. Clearance
  is a risk finding, not a guarantee.
- Judge marks as wholes and buyers as they actually behave. Small
  spelling changes, added descriptive words, a different font, and
  a house mark added in front rarely cure a conflict on the
  dominant element.
- Do not treat class numbers as walls. Relatedness turns on buyer
  expectation, shared channels, and trade practice, and routinely
  crosses class lines in both directions.
- Do not ignore unregistered use. A business trading under the same
  name in the same field is a conflict whether or not it ever
  filed anything.
- Do not invent register data. Every hit in the note needs a source
  the reader can reopen: register name, mark, owner, and serial or
  registration number as shown in that register. If a detail was
  not visible, write that it was not visible.
- Do not state filing fees, renewal dates, or procedural deadlines
  from memory. Fees and deadlines change. Point the reader to the
  current USPTO or WIPO schedule and the publication record for
  the specific mark.
- Keep filing with the owner or their counsel. Applicants based
  outside the United States should expect to need a United States
  licensed attorney for a USPTO filing, and any HIGH or CRITICAL
  finding, opposition, or office action goes to counsel, not to a
  workaround.
- Worked example, compressed. Proposed mark BLUEWAVE LABS for
  project software in classes 9 and 42. Variants include BLUEWAVE,
  BLUE WAVE, and LABS alone. The knockout finds a live registration
  for BLUEWAVE for downloadable project software in class 9, owned
  by an unrelated company, still in use on its site and in an app
  store. Scoring that hit: identical dominant element, identical
  goods for the class 9 part, live registered, overlapping online
  channels. Band CRITICAL for class 9, HIGH overall. Decision in
  the note: drop or rename before spend, because narrowing the
  class 42 wording does not cure an identical mark on the same
  product in class 9. A second hit, BLUE WAVES for swim lessons in
  class 41, is dismissed in one line: unrelated services, different
  buyers, no shared channels.