Product Name Clearance

Some product lines choose to trademark specific product names. After naming brainstorming sessions, the P&S Specialist or Coordinator should perform a product name clearance before sending final ideas to Legal@advantus.com for vetting.

Start with a basic google search for the product name suggested seeing if the name is already widely used.

• Search for the product name using the All, Shopping, and Images tabs.

• Search for the name with and without quotes.
  • Ex. “Cable Drops” and Cable Drops
•  Search for the “Product Name and Product Category/Type” in quotes　.
  • Ex. “Cable drop cable organizer”
• Search for “Product Name”/“Product Category” to return results where the product name and product category are used in the same sentence.
  • Ex. “Cable drop”/“Organizer” 　
• Repeat each of the above search steps for similar product categories.
  • Ex. A search for cable drops should also include a search for “Cable drop organizers” and “Cable drop cord holders”
• Repeat each of the above search steps for any similar spellings or misspellings of the potential name.
  • Ex. If we were trying to clear Pixi, we would also search Pixie and Pixy.
• Repeat the above steps on amazon.com and ebay.com
• Note products with the same or similar name in the same or similar product category. Include a screenshot of the product listing and a summary that explains how the products and names are similar.

Next, perform a United States Patent and Trademark Office Search.

First, determine the International Class: 　

• Go to https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/search/get-ready-search-classification-and-design to see a list of each international class and determine which class the product falls under.

Next, perform a Trademark Search using the product name, keywords, and international class to see if the product name is already trademarked.

• Go to https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=login&p_lang=english&p_d=trmk and perform a “Structured Search”
• Click on “Word and/or Design Mark Search (Structured)”

• Search the Product Name you want to clear in the first box marked “Search Term” and set the “Field” to “Full Mark.”
• Set the “Operator” to “AND”
• In the second “Search Term” box, put the International Class Number you found and set the “Field” to “International Class.”

Note: The International Class is always a three-digit number, so if we were searching for Pogo in Class 9, it is searched as “009”- A search for 9 instead of 009 will yield no results.

Review the results

• Click on the trademarks that are “LIVE” and in the same international class to review.

• Make a note of the live trademarks in the same international class and similar to the product to show Legal by taking a screenshot or saving the Trademark to a PDF.

• Compile all of the information from your Google searches and Trademark searches into a spreadsheet to send to Legal for review and name approval.

Note: During your search, if you find a product already exists and is trademarked with the same or similar name in the same or similar product category, make a note of it and search for alternative product names. We will not move forward with a name if it is already trademarked and used by a similar product in a similar category.