Patents and Trademarks

How do I search for trademark information?

U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) 

The USPTO is the federal agency for registering trademarks. Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) allows you to search the USPTO's database of registered trademarks and prior pending applications to find marks that may prevent registration due to a likelihood of confusion refusal.

• TESS

  The Trademark Electronic Search System is a USPTO database for the public to search active and inactive federal trademark applications and registrations, both word and design marks.

• ID Manual

  The U.S. Acceptable Identification of Goods and Services Manual is where you can find a code associated with your good or service, which you can use to do a search using TESS.

• Design Search Code Manual

  Where you can find an image category code, which you can use to find design marks using TESS.

How to Perform a Trademark Word Search

1. Go to TESS
2. Select Basic Word Mark Search
3. Type the word you wish to search
4. Choose if you wish to search plural forms of the word
5. Choose if you wish to search live and dead marks, or just one or the other
6. Use Combined Word Mark field
7. Click Submit Query

How to Perform a Trademark Design Search

1. Go to the ID Manual
   1. Find your good or service and make note of the appropriate code for later use.
2. Go to the Design Search Code Manual
   1. Find the image category that most closely matches the image you wish to trademark.  You can do this by using the Keyword Search or by browsing by category.  Make note of the appropriate code for later use.
3. Go to TESS
   1. Select Word and/or Design Mark Search
      1. Structured if searching one or two terms/using no more than two search fields
      2. Free Form if searching more than two terms/using more than two search fields or if you choose to use Boolean login
   2. Using the International Class field code, type the code you found earlier in the ID Manual
   3. Using the Design Code field code, type the code you found earlier in the Design Search Code Manual
   4. There are numerous other field codes one can use to limit the search even more such as whether it is live or dead, who owns the mark, or searching a word if there may be a word with the image.