Conducting a trademark search for the name of a beer or brewery

(The following is a transcript of the video above.)

Hey everybody, this is Steve, chief paralegal and researcher here at Gerben IP.

Today, we’re going to look at running a trademark search for beer.  As a general overview, the government breaks all products and services down into 45 different classes.

So what we’re going to do today is look at the classes that are most applicable for a trademark registration for beer or brewery services.

As a quick disclaimer, trademark law is inherently subjective. When you submit an application to the government, it goes to an examining attorney that could deny your application.

Therefore, if you perform a search and it comes up clear in all the classes that I suggest looking in today, that still doesn’t guarantee that that particular examining attorney won’t find some other reason to reject it.

Okay, now let’s get going. The first place we want to go is the trademark ID manual.  As you can see, I’ve all ready entered beer here.

And we’re going to find that the number one class we want to check out is 032, this is quite obviously for beer.   The other one though, that we really want to be concerned about is class 033.

If there is a mark for vodka, or rum that’s been registered with a similar name to the trademark you’re looking to register, it will be cause for rejection.   These hard liquors are categorized n class 033.

Another class we want to check out, class 043.  This is for bar and restaurant services.  One thing I want to point out here is class 043 is not the class that restaurant and bar services were always included under.   They were once included under class 042.

But for now, let’s just say we trying to name our beer or brewery ‘Cane’. We had a beer or a brewery that had cane in the trademark we wanted to register.  So we’d put in ‘cane’, and MI for mark index, and “live” for the live/dead indicator since we only want to see active trademarks.

And here’s what I want to show you: that 042 has restaurant services.

So we click submit, boom, here we go.  Now would this mark cause a likelihood of confusion in the marketplace?  Probably not.

But it’s important to note that we definitely want to check 042 for restaurant services if you’re looking to register beer or brewery services.

Okay, so those are the most applicable classes. There are definitely other ones you could check out: 021 for beer mugs, and beer jugs.  But, 032, 033, and restaurant services.

Now like I always mention, registering a trademark…it’s not rocket science, but expertise comes from experience.

So we always recommend using an attorney.  Also at Gerben IP, we use professional grade search software.  We have software that goes in and does vowel replacements, and phonetic searches.   This trademark search software gives you way more robust trademark search, so that you can be more confident when filing with the USPTO.

So give trademark attorney Josh a call for a free consultation.  Josh has worked on over 5,500 trademark matters, he’ll definitely help you out.  Thank you guys for watching this video, and check back soon.

Josh Gerben, Esq.

Josh Gerben, Esq. is the founder and principal of Gerben IP. In 2008, Mr. Gerben started the firm to provide high-quality trademark services at reasonable prices. Today, he is recognized by the World Trademark Review as a top trademark filer, having registered over 7,500 trademarks. The contents of this blog are for informational purposes only and may not be relied on as legal advice.

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