Legal

We are not lawyers and are not licensed to give legal advice.

However, we were trained by a top consumer company’s trademark specialist and now we have many years experience checking names. Bottom line it is hard work. As a result, most lawyers use automated reports to start with, then a paralegal, then finally they look at it. Still errors can creep in.

So we do our own searches. We tighten the checks as the number of names in play gets shorter and shorter so we don’t waste your time discussing names that are not going to pass muster. Yes, we break a lot of hearts. Trademark registrations have been exploding for years… and there are only so many words in every language. Luckily we work mostly in English which has a much bigger vocabulary than any other language. (See Linguistics).

And almost every week we have to advise clients on differences between, as well as similarities, domains and trademarks. We actively track all news domain related and have bought, sold and transferred hundreds. Often we will hold them, even manage them, for clients. This whole area is in fast moving flux right now. Don’t think owning a domain gives you a lot of legal clout. Also, don’t despair, we find lots of clear domain names on every project.

The combination of our searches, your lawyers, your own and the trademark registration officials are the best that can be done to ensure clean marks in this day and age.

PS We have our own trademarks. We filed and processed them ourselves. We have advised many a small company on how to file for their own trademarks (US only).

PPS We check trademarks in most, but not all, countries of the world. For some of our partners and coop clients, this actually becomes our major role on a project.