Quality Trademark Search Requires an Attorney´s Help

One of the things that you want to do if you´re trying to brand your business is to create a trademark. This is a word or symbol that people will become familiar with over time. Your customers will eventually be able to simply see this symbol and associate it with you. You can also use this symbol to mark all of your products and papers so that it is clear to anyone who is looking at them that you are the one who created them. This can help protect you legally in the event that someone else tries to copy or steal your products. Before you go ahead and choose a trademark, though, you need to make sure that you do a trademark search. This is a search that confirms that the mark that you wish to use is not currently in use by anyone else. Doing this search is a way to protect yourself from some serious legal consequences that can occur if you use a mark that´s already being used elsewhere.

The importance of making sure that you have a unique trademark can not be understated. At a basic business level you certainly want to make sure that the image that you´re using to brand your company can´t be confused with other brands. More importantly, it is illegal for you to use a mark that is legally being used by someone else. If another company has already created a valid trademark and you copy it or use one that is strikingly similar to it, then you can face some serious legal problems. This can include expensive fines. At the very least, you´ll have to change your trademark which is not only a hassle but an embarrassment for your business.

The way to make sure that you don´t get into this kind of trouble is to do a thorough search through existing trademarks to make sure that you are not using a mark that anyone else is using. A large percentage of business owners try to do this search on their own using the Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) which is designed for this type of search. Although this may seem like a legitimate way to cover your bases to make sure that the trademark that you are using is valid, it is often not a sufficient way to search through trademarks.

The main problem that you´ll run into if you use this method of searching is that there are a lot of trademarks which are completely valid but which have not yet been registered. These trademarks don´t show up in the system. If you do a search of the system and discover no trademarks similar to your own but the one that you start to use ends up being one of these valid unregistered trademarks then you´re going to face the same legal hassles that you would have faced if you hadn´t bothered to do the search at all.

So what is the solution to your problem? You really need to hire a legitimate trademark search service to run the search for you. There are attorneys who work specifically in this area of the law. They make sure to search all of the different places that can possibly be searched to ensure that the trade mark that you want to use is open for use. They check a variety of different databases including state and federal trademark databases, common law databases and the entire Internet. This comprehensive search virtually guarantees that the mark that you´re using isn´t in use elsewhere. Moreover, you have an attorney to back you up if something slips through the cracks and someone accuses you of using their mark down the line. It´s worth the time and money upfront to do a proper search like this one so that you can avoid the trouble associated with an improper trademark search.