Searching trade mark text

Please note that this search facility is different to our internal search systems. Therefore the results may differ due not only to the search tool itself but also because different search strategies are used by our examination staff.

Use the drop down menu to select the type of search.

Three search terms can be searched at one time e.g. different spellings of the same word such as Millennium or three completely different terms or words e.g. Smith, Jones, Williams
A minimum of one character can be searched
A maximum of twenty characters can be used in each search box.
If your mark is a plural eg. Frogs or Boxes, you should search the singular eg. Frog or Box.
If your Trade Mark includes the name of the goods you are supplying eg. Forest Desks, you should include the distinctive element, in this case "Forest" as a separate search term.

How to conduct a search (214Kb)

Exact

Will only return trade marks that exactly match the search term(s).

"And" is not available for this search

"Exact" search examples

Search term	Will find	Will not find
Example search terms are shown in the first column. Read across the row to identify what terms will be found using the exact option and any that would not be found.
Orange	Orange	Orange Blossom
Orange or Blue	Orange, Blue	Orange Blossom, Blue Lagoon
Ford or Focus or C-Max	Ford, Focus, C-Max	Ford Focus, Ford Focus C-Max
Kelloggs Crunchy Nut	Kelloggs Crunchy Nut	Kelloggs, Kellogs Crunchy Nut Cornflakes
One	One	1
1	1	One

Starts with

The "Starts with" search will only return trade marks that start with the search term(s).

"Starts with" search examples

Search term	Will find	Will not find
Example search terms are shown in the first column. Read across the row to identify what terms will be found using the starts with option and any that would not be found.
Orange	Orange, Orange Blossom	Jaffa Orange
Orange or Blue	Orange, Orange Blossom, Blue Lagoon	Jaffa Orange, Air Blue
Ford or Focus or C-Max	Ford, Ford Focus, Focus C-Max, Ford Focus C-Max
Kelloggs Crunchy Nut	Kelloggs Crunchy Nut, Kelloggs Crunchy Nut Cornflakes	Crunchy Nut, Crunchy Cornflakes Kelloggs Cornflakes
One	One, One Two Three	1, 1, 2, 3
1	1 1, 2, 3	One, One, Two, Three

"And" is not available for this search

Contains word

The "Contains word" search will only find trade marks with the exact word within the mark.

"And" and "or" search options available for this type of search
Common words, single/two letter, numeral combinations are likely to bring back large numbers of results
Will not find words hidden within other words e.g. a search for "smile" will not find the word "mile"

"Contains word" search examples

Search term	Will find	Will not find
Example search terms are shown in the first column. Read across the row to identify what terms will be found using the contains word option and any that would not be found.
Escape	Escape, The Great Escape, Escape Hideaways, Escape-Holidays	Cape, Ape, Escaped
Bell	Bell, Bell-Fruit, Bell's Blue Bell	Bluebell (all one word), Belling
One	One, Two, Three	1, Stone

Contains string

Will return trade marks by matching strings of text or numbers within and across the text.

This is the default search option offering the widest search criteria.

"Contains string" search examples

Search term	Will find	Will not find
Example search terms are shown in the first column. Read across the row to identify what terms will be found using the contains string option and any that would not be found.
Cape	Escape, The Great Escape Escape Hideaways Escape-Holidays
Bell	Bell, Bell-Fruit, Bell's, Blue Bell, Bluebell
One	One, One, Two, Three, Coronet, Bones	1, 2, 3

Combining searches

"Contains word" and "Contains string" searches can be used to link two or more search terms.

"Contains word" and "Contains string" search examples, using the search terms BLACK, WHITE and RED for a contains word search.

This affects the results as follows:

Search term and option	Will find	Will not find
The example search term and option is shown in the first column. Read across the row to identify what the search will find using those terms and options and what it will not find.
Black and White and Red	Only marks which contain all three words, e.g. Black Red White	Words which only contain one or two of the search words e.g. Black, White, Red, Black & White Whiskey, Red Bull
Black or White or Red	Marks that contain any one, two of all of the search terms Black, White, Red, Black & White Whiskey, Red Bull, Black & Decker
Black and White or Red	Marks that contain Red, Black and White e.g. Black & White Whiskey, Black n Red	Black, White
Black or White and Red	Marks that contain black, white and red.	White, Red

Numbers

Numbers can be searched by using numerals or their equivalent in words. Both the numerals and their equivalent words should be used if you are searching for comparison purposes.

Only "Exact", "Starts with" or "Contains string" searches should be used to search for numbers within a trade mark. "Contains string" will give the widest results if you are searching for comparison purposes.

Examples:

To find	Search	Operator	Search
Read across each row to find an example number, the first search term that should be entered into the search box, the search operator that should be used and the second search term that should be entered.
62	62	Or	Sixty two
1000	1000	Or	Thousand
123	123	Or	One two three
Hundred	Hundred	Or	100

Characters

Some common keyboard characters and symbols can be searched but may also require the word equivalent to be searched for comparison purposes.

Character	Searchable	Also search for comparison
A list of special characters are shown in the first column. Read across the row to find out whether they are searchable and if a search comparison is also available.
!	Yes
"	Yes
£	Yes	Pound
$	Yes	Dollar
%	Yes
*	Yes
&	Yes	And and Plus
=	Yes	Equals
#	Yes
^	No
+	No	Plus
()	No
¥	No
€	No	Euro

Some of the extra characters to the ISO 8859-1 character set cannot be handled by some of our IT Systems. For print and display purposes we have converted them to a similar character (for example, the Euro symbol will either appear as "E" or "Euro" depending on the context in which it appears).

Marks that contain foreign characters

Many Trade Marks on the database contain characters that are not in the standard English alphabet. If you search using the foreign characters below, the table shows how those characters will appear when displayed and/or printed.

In the same way, if you search using English characters, the results will include, as well as English equivalents, the foreign characters listed below.

Character	Translated	Character	Translated
A list of upper case non-english characters are listed in the first columns. Read across the row to the second column to identify how these characters may be displayed or printed. A list of lower case non-english characters are listed in teh third column. Read across the row to the fourth column to identify how these characters may be displayed or printed.
À	A	þ	P
Á	A	ß	SS
Â	A	à	A
Ã	A	á	A
Ä	A	â	A
Å	A	ã	A
Æ	A	ä	A
Ç	C	å	A
È	E	æ	A
É	E	ç	C
Ê	E	è	E
Ë	E	é	E
Ì	I	ê	E
Í	I	ë	E
Î	I	ì	I
Ï	I	í	I
Ð	D	î	I
Ñ	N	ï	I
Ò	O	ð	D
Ó	O	ñ	N
Ô	O	ò	O
Õ	O	ó	O
Ö	O	ô	O
Ø	O	õ	O
Ù	U	ö	O
Ú	U	ø	O
Û	U	ù	U
Ü	U	ú	U
Ý	Y	û	U
		ü	U
		ý	Y
		ÿ	y
		þ	P

The display of the characters listed above depends upon your browser complying with certain standards.

You will get an error message if you type a character that cannot be searched.

Understanding your results

A maximum of 1000 results can be returned.

Results are displayed in ascending Nice Class order.

The search returns 500 hits as a default. This can be increased to 1000. If more than 500/1000 hits are identified by the search only a sample of hits will be shown in the results. This will not be a definitive list of results as the system does not rank the results. Even though the list appears in Nice Class order not all marks will be shown. For any search that exceeds 500/1000 it is advisable to "Amend Search".

Amend search

To limit the number of results consider:

Limiting the number of classes you search. If you do not select any classes the search will include them all. Use the classification guide to identify the goods or services that are most important to you and also use the cross search to search related classes.
Search classes individually if searching a very common term e.g an All class search for the word "green" brings back too many hits – a search in Class 9 brings back 342 hits (at the time or writing)
Use "Exact" to identify exact use of term
Use "Starts with" to se if there are marks that start with the term
Use "Word" rather than string
Search words and images as separate searches
Use a more focussed image search by using a lower level Vienna classification
Use combinations of terms using the "and"/"or" operators Use a different term e.g. one, two or three common numerals such as 100 is likely to bring back too many hits as is one, two or common sequences of three letters
Consider searching "All Live" statuses rather than "All" statuses

Reserved marks

Reserved marks are words or images that cannot be registered as trade marks because they are protected by International convention or by national or International legislation.

This search will return four separate types of protected marks:

Category	Type of protection	What this category includes	Classes of goods or services these marks are protected in
Select the category required in the first column. Then read across the row to identify the type of protection, what the category includes and the classes of goods or services these marks are protected in.
1	Marks Protected under the Paris Convention Article 3 of the procedure for the selection of International Non-Proprietary Names	Names, emblems, titles, symbols etc of signatories to the Paris Convention Names of International organisations	All classes 1 to 45
2	International non-proprietary names	Veterinary substances, pesticides, pharmaceutical preparations and substances	5
3	Geographical Indications Regulations 510/2006, 1493/99 and 1576/89	Protected Geographical Indications (PGI) Protected Designations of Origin (PDO) Geographical Designations of Origin for Wines and Spirits This includes words such as “Champagne” (wines), Dorset blue” (cheese).	29, 30, 31, 32, 33
4	Marks Protected under other legislation	Includes symbols such as the Red Cross, Red Crescent, Red Crystal, Olympic ring and words such as Anzac, Olympic, Red Cross, Red Crescent	All classes 1 to 45

Trade mark applications which consist of, contain, or closely resemble signs in these categories will be open to objection upon examination.