United States Patent and Trademark Office Searches

[silverly]

For anyone like myself who has had reservations about searching for trademarks on the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) site with the Trademark Electronic Search System , here is the process that I've found works best with the least amount of trouble for me:

1) Use the Free Form Search to obtain desired field codes.

a. the field codes that I use most often are Mark Non-Punctuated and the U S Class 028 or occasionally the International Class 014

b. for a broader search I use one of the two class codes I mentioned and Filing Date which I cut and paste from the list of codes and then
modify for my own desired date range ie. `FD > 19800000 < 19900000

2) For actual searching I only use the Structured Search which requires two search terms, two field codes and an operator

a. it doesn't matter which search term and code are used first, but most often I enter a letter or letters for the search term and select the field non punctuated word mark

b. occasionally, I substitute the letter or letters search term for a symbol such as a star or triangle and select the field design description.

c. for the operator "and" is the only thing that works well for me so far.

d. once the search results come up, select the image list; the worst I do is twenty or so pages of images to search, usually it's five or less
and when looking at a page of one hundred images, it doesn't take too awfully long to scan the results.

Now that I have at least in my own mind gained a certain amount of proficiency with the USPTO site, it seems clear to me that their goal is to make all trademarks accessible and easily searched; it just took me a while to get there. The biggest problem with searching for trademarks has nothing to do with the USPTO. It is that early manufacturers generally did not register their trademarks. The practice of using trademarks particularly for manufacturers using precious metal did not really begin in earnest until the 1940's. Currently, no doubt because of law suits, it seems that the pendulum has completely swung the other way. Foreign manufacturers and governments seem to be among the most common users of U S registered trademark.

I hope this write up is clear enough to be understood and that a few people will actually be able to make use of it. I've had fun using it to plow through a lot of interesting marks. I don't expect that my way is the best ways nor that there are not others on this site that are completely proficient with this subject.
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