Pre-Clearance of Trademarks

Because of the cost of clearing several different marks, I am often asked how business owners can reduce the number of potential names to submit for clearance. As a pre-clearance procedure, I often tell clients to choose up to 10 arbitrary or fanciful names to search at the United States Patent and Trademark Office Web site. The PTO Web site lets you search for registered trademarks and trademarks that have been applied for by other companies.

As a business owner, you can run a pre-clearance search on your 10 chosen names and eliminate any names that conflict with your chosen name. Remember, though, that just because a name does not appear on the PTO Web site, does not mean the name is available for registration. Another person might be using the name, but has not registered it yet or perhaps they spelled the name with a slight change. For example, if you search for BUGS, you would miss every registration containing the word BUGZ. I’ve found that by conducting a pre-clearance search, you can narrow your original list of 10 names to 2 or 3. You can then submit these 2 or 3 names to your trademark attorney for full clearance.