Trademark Search
& Clearance

A clearance search checks whether your proposed mark conflicts with any existing trademark registrations or prior uses before you file or invest in the name. It covers the USPTO federal registry, state registrations across all 50 US states, common law marks that are unregistered but actively used in commerce, domain names, and business name filings. The result is a written legal opinion that identifies each conflict, assigns a risk level, and gives you a recommendation on whether and how to proceed.

There is no legal requirement to search before filing. But skipping it is one of the most expensive decisions a brand can make. If your application is refused because of a conflicting mark a search would have caught, you lose your filing fees and potentially months of timeline. If a rights holder with senior common law use sends a cease-and-desist after you have launched and built traction, the cost of rebranding will exceed the cost of the search by a significant margin. Search first. The risk equation only gets harder after you have invested in the name.

A knockout search is a quick scan of the USPTO federal database to identify obviously conflicting marks: identical or near-identical marks in the same class. It is fast and inexpensive, but it will miss common law marks, state registrations, phonetically similar marks in related classes, and unregistered uses that still carry priority rights. A full clearance search covers all of those layers and ends with a written legal opinion. For a brand name you are committing to and investing in, a knockout search is a starting point, not a conclusion.

For a name, generally yes. Trademark protection attaches to the use of a mark in commerce, and the process by which the name was generated is not relevant to USPTO registrability, as long as the mark is distinctive and not confusingly similar to a senior mark. For a logo, the analysis is more complicated. Pure machine-generated images currently fail copyright protection under US Copyright Office guidance, but trademark protection runs on a separate framework. You can hold a registered trademark in a logo without holding copyright in the same image, which affects how you can stop someone else from using a similar design. AI name-generation tools also do not check for trademark conflicts, so a full clearance search is doubly important when the name came out of an AI workflow. We work through both layers in the clearance step.

It depends on the nature of the conflict. A registered mark in a completely unrelated goods and services category may not block your filing. A mark that sounds similar but is not identical may have room for coexistence. A common law mark with limited geographic use may present only regional risk. The clearance opinion breaks down each conflict, explains the specific risk it carries, and gives you options: file as-is, modify the mark, file in a different class, or reconsider the name. You will not receive a simple yes or no. You will receive a clear picture of the risk and a recommended path forward.

A knockout search is completed in 2 to 3 business days. A full clearance search with a written opinion typically takes 5 to 10 business days from the date of engagement. If you are working against a launch deadline, a deal closing, or an active dispute timeline, raise that at the outset and we will tell you what is feasible.

No. A clearance search tells you what the risk profile looks like at the time the search is conducted. It cannot account for applications filed after your search date, or for an examining attorney's interpretation that differs from the opinion. What it does is significantly reduce the risk of filing into a conflict and gives you a documented basis for the filing decision. A clean clearance search also supports your good-faith position if a dispute surfaces later about when and how you adopted the mark.

No. A post-launch search is still valuable, even though the result changes how you act on it. It tells you whether you have built up senior common law rights, whether an existing registration presents ongoing risk, and whether you should file immediately to lock in your priority date. The later you search, the more is at stake. But discovering a conflict on your own terms, before a cease-and-desist arrives, gives you far more strategic options than finding out from opposing counsel.

A clearance opinion is a written legal analysis, not a summary of what the database returned. It explains what was found, how each result compares to your proposed mark under USPTO likelihood-of-confusion standards, the specific risk level for each potential conflict, and a recommendation on how to proceed. It is the difference between raw search data and a decision you can actually make. It is also the document you want on file if a dispute surfaces later about when and how you adopted the mark.

Yes. If you start with a Full Clearance search and decide to file after reviewing the opinion, the search fee applies as a credit toward Brand Locked. The same credit applies if you start with the Knockout Search and upgrade. The goal is to get you to the right decision, not to charge you twice for the same work.