How to search for trademarks globally?

Searching for early registered trademarks is one of the first and most important steps before starting to use a new brand in the market.?

If you consider this search in advance you can save your business from all sorts of legal conflicts, unnecessary money, and time wasting.

I will give you one example. Let’s imagine a small business owner who produces electric scooters. The owner selected one cool brand name and started using it to offer the scooters. By word of mouth, his product and brand took off becoming popular.

However, one day the owner received a cease and desist letter from a company that produces electric bicycles with the same exact brand name. Their earlier trademark covers all sorts of electric vehicles including scooters.

By missing to check whether the name is available for use, the scooter manufacturer jeopardized his entire business because with such legal conflicts he can end up either rebranding which can lead to fewer sales, or fighting against the claim for infringement which can be costly and in many cases unsuccessful.

Not only do trademark searches have to be done before the market launch, but they also have to be implemented in the brand-building process itself. This will allow you to select a trouble-free brand way before you start using it which will save you a lot of time and money.

One of the global tools that allow such searches is the TMView trademark database developed and maintained by the European Intellectual Property Office.

This tool is open and free and can be used by everyone who knows of course the basics of trademark protection and search.

If you are interested in learning how to search for trademarks you can access this Udemy course from here: Global trademark search using the TMView database.