Trade mark search and advice

Important notice of closure, 12 December 2008

A trade mark is one of the most powerful tools you have to promote and distinguish your business. Think of the companies, large and small, who are part of our daily lives whose registered logos are internationally recognised.

Why use this service?

This optional service is intended to give you quick and confidential advice on whether your mark would be acceptable for registration before you decide whether to make a formal public application (see FAQ for details). This search will check whether there are any earlier filed marks which are likely to be confused with your trade mark.

A key point to remember is that once you have applied to formally register a trade mark you can’t alter it and we cannot refund your application fee (which is a minimum of £200 with an additional £50 for each extra class). By using this search service at an early stage, you can reduce the risk of making a full trade mark application which has little or no chance of being registered.

Using our service also gives you the opportunity to speak directly and confidentially to an experienced examiner after you have received your report.

Cost and timings

This service costs £80 plus V.A.T per mark for up to three classification areas and £10 plus V.A.T for each extra classification area.

Please note that we cannot take the cost of this service off any future trade mark application fees.

You will issue your report within 10 working days of us receiving all the information we need to conduct a search.

Contact details

To request a search you can fill in form TM SAS and send it by email, fax (see details below) or by post to:-

Search and Advisory Service
UK Intellectual Property Office
Concept House
Cardiff Road
Newport, South Wales
NP10 8QQ

If you need more information or advice then call us on: +44 (0)1633 811010 or e-mail us at sas@ipo.gov.uk or contact us by fax on +44 (0)1633 811020.