Trademark Search – Understanding the Impact of Technology on the Tools & Strategies
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The arrival and emergence of advanced technology, specifically the internet as a search platform, have catapulted the quality of performing a Trademark Search. The same has also led to the creation of advanced strategies for conducting a trademark search. As a strategic tool, the web can have an immense impact upon performing a trademark search in the ways mentioned below:
- It can act as a massive access point to the use of word marks across the globe.
- It can act as a quick, efficient, and reliable front end to trademark search vendors online.
- It can be a possible search tool for non-word trademarks.
- It can be a common marketplace for business companies and brands seeking a trademark search professional.
Furthermore, ever since the advent of the internet, trademark search platforms and tools have also evolved to a great extent. Earlier, the trademark search platforms available used to allow searching for only simple word strings. Multiple challenges, including:
- Corrupted spellings;
- Intentional misspellings;
- Puns;
- Slangs;
- Variations in common words, colloquialisms, punctuations, prefixes & suffixes, abbreviations, and foreign language equivalents;
- Synonyms; and
- Coined words – made these initial tools useless.
Luckily, modern trademark search services help significantly in collating similar marks. Producers and vendors, over the years, have taken the diligent responsibility of cross-referencing related string marks. Additionally, technology like the rotated trademark index helps in locating letter strings present as mid-word, prefixes, suffixes, or the entire word. Therefore, we can say that the advanced tools and platforms have had a massive impact on performing a trademark search.
Exploring the Online Trademark Search Tools
One of the most widely recognized trademark search tools is the Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS), owned by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
TESS offers a simple trademark search template. It, unfortunately, doesn’t provide a phonetic search option. In general, phonetic searches generate many unwanted records. The pattern matching abilities of TESS eases the flexibility of creating one’s phonetic searches. Now let’s talk about Lexis® FEDTM. It includes vital search capabilities for performing a successful trademark search. With the help of this tool, an individual can find all words, including Boolean connectors such as ‘and’ or ‘or’ and noise words such as ‘it,’ ‘is,’ and ‘at.’
One can also conduct a comprehensive trademark search for unregistered marks using internet search engines; for example, upon entering a proposed name in the Google search engine box, you can come across a report of every instance when the said word has appeared on a web page indexed by Google. The search engine giant offers various tools you may use for performing a trademark search; for instance, its language tool deals with the issues of language barriers.
You can efficiently use the language tool to perform the following:
- Search for pages located in specific nations and written in particular languages;
- Use the Google interface in different languages; and
- Translate any piece of text or an entire web page from a fixed set of languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, German, Italian, English, and French, into another language in this set.
The Google image search tool is exceedingly comprehensive, with billions of images indexed and available for viewing. One can conveniently use the image search by entering a query in the image search box and clicking the search button. On the results page, one can then click on the thumbnail to see a bigger and better version of the image and the page where it is used or located. Although very beneficial, the technology has not reached the extent where it can decipher the content of an image by looking at it straight away. Besides the Google image search tool, there have been other useful platforms developed by International Business Machine (IBM), Virage, and Excalibur.
Bottom Line
Performing a trademark search is crucial before going ahead with Trademark Registration or enforcing your Trademark Rights. It is essential in the present digital era to stay aware of the appropriate tools and strategies for achieving the desired results from a trademark search. The advantages of a trademark search, if conducted optimally, go far beyond monetary savings and interests. Although many organizations and business companies conduct trademark searches in-house, it is highly recommended to outsource the task to reliable trademark experts and attorneys possessing in-depth knowledge to save your valuable time and resources.
If you wish to discuss your trademark search-related queries and requirements, you may write to us at kashishipr@kashishipr.com! ✅ For more visit: https://www.kashishipr.com/
