Why Hire A Trademark Attorney for A Trademark Search?

Greetings. I’m trademark attorney Josh Gerben and I would like to talk a little bit about why it’s very important to hire a trademark attorney to do your trademark search. A lot of websites claim you can just type your proposed trademark into the website, and, they’ll tell you if your trademark is clear. In addition, the U.S government allows you to run a trademark search on its website. Let’s go through a quick example of one our clients.

We registered a trademark for Tires Etc., a retail tire store. The trademark is Tires, Etc. If you go onto the government’s website and type in “tires etcetera” and spell out the word etcetera, you will not see their registration. However, if you filed for Tires Etcetera, the entire word, and were using it, you would be in violation of our client’s trademark.

A second example is a trademark we filed ourselves – Trademark University^®. If you go online and type in “Trademark University,” you will see our trademark. However, if you take the space out and just type in “TrademarkUniversity” as one word, the filing will not come up.

If you hire Gerben IP to do your search, we use a company software called CT Corsearch. CT Corsearch is one of the best softwares on the market for trademark searches. It allows us to go in and look for phonetic similarities, do vowel replacements, check for different spellings of the word, whether it’s a K for a C or a C for a K or what have you. We can tear words apart. We can combine and switch around phrases. There are all different types of things the software allows us to do. That is the type of search you need to do in order to ensure your trademark is clear.

Instead of spending a lot of money to build equity into a brand that you’re not 100% sure of, you can have a trademark attorney do the search and ensure that your trademark is truly clear to be used.

If you have any further questions about why a trademark search is important, please feel free to give me a call.

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Josh Gerben, Esq.

Josh Gerben, Esq. is a nationally recognized trademark attorney and the founder of Gerben IP. Since launching the firm in 2008, he has overseen the registration of over 10,000 trademarks and handled over 1,500 trademark disputes. Josh's practice focuses on building and defending global trademark portfolios for clients. These clients include entrepreneurs, private equity-backed businesses, athletes, celebrities, and public companies. Frequently quoted by major media outlets like CNBC, CNN, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, Josh is widely regarded as a leading authority in trademark law.