Blog
Archive for March, 2008
How to search trademarks
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008
One of the hardest things to do is come up with the name for a company or product that not only sounds good, but hasn’t already been used and has a decent set of domain names available. There’s also one more thing to think about - has the name been registered as a trademark?
In all likelyhood, if you type your name into Google and don’t get any relevant results then it probably hasn’t been registered. However, you cannot be entirely certain as a company may have registered the name for future use and so it is important to check the various trademark registers to be sure.
A trademark search can be done yourself using self service online tools or you can pay a legal advisor to do it for you. Obviously, you will have to pay for the latter and although a lawyer will be able to give you specific advice and do a more detailed search through the relevant IP offices, we have found that if you combine Google, the availability of domain names and no results from an online trademark search, you’re usually fine!
So where can you search? Unfortunately there is no single worldwide trademark registry so you need to do searches in a number of key locations where you intend to do business. At the very least, this should include a UK and US search.
It is important to understand how trademarks work, in particular how the different classes relate to how a trademark can be used and opposed. A trademark is generally registered in one or more classes and Person A may use the same trademark as Person B if it is in a different class (and is not already registered and is not opposed). This means that when you search, you should perform the search across all classes or in classes relevant to your intended use. See this cross search guide from the UK Intellectual Property Office for information.
So where can you do the searches?
- Australia - Trade Mark Search
- Canada - Intellectual Property Office
- Germany - Patent and Trade Mark Office
- Ireland - Patents Office
- UK - Intellectual Property Office
- US - Patent and Trademark Office
Finally, the Singapore Government provide a free service called SurfIP that allows you to search a wide range of trademark databases simultaneously - Canada, China, European, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taipei, Thailand, UK, US and the World Intellectual Property Organisation.
We’re live!
Monday, March 10th, 2008
Attenalert is now live and accepting new signups! There is a 7 day free trial so why not give it a go?! If you have any questions, simply e-mail support@attenalert.com and we’ll get right back to you.
Launch Monday
Saturday, March 8th, 2008
In less than 48 hours we will be launching Attenalert…see you on Monday!
Minor improvements
Monday, March 3rd, 2008
Although we have not yet launched, we are still using Attenalert ourselves and as a result of our own use, just released a small feature addition.
Previously, all the sites were displayed in a big table (with paging) regardless of which word they were discoveries for. Now, you can filter the table by word. Obviously, if you only have 1 word then there’s no option to do this but as we began to track more words and had a large number of results, it became apparent that it is important to be able to do that.
And now you can. It is very quick and easy for us to add these minor features and hopefully they will all add to the great user experience we’re trying to build, based on our own use even before customers get a go!
Before:
After:
What’s the delay?
Sunday, March 2nd, 2008
We have been ready to launch for a week or two now but are still waiting on our internet merchant account from our payment handling bank. We’ve been on the phone to them every day to try and chase it up but to no effect but we’re cautiously hoping this will be the week Attenalert launches.