Refining Trademark Searches (cont'd)

There are several ways to refine a trademark search.

In Lesson 3 we limited the search using the trademark's legal status (ST=)— registered, pending, intent to use. We can also narrow a search to active (/active) or inactive (/inactive) marks.

Additionally, there are two common ways to narrow a trademark search. One is to limit the search to a particular area of interest using international (IC=) or U.S. (CL=) classifications. Classes can be searched using codes or words.

We will narrow our search to the area of Toys by using the international class code 28. Note: We can find the international class code for toys by using the EXPAND command.

Expand ic=toys

We enter our search strategy:

select ic=28

Tip 4-3

We are now ready to refine our search once more, this time using the second common method for narrowing a trademark search: searching Goods and Services descriptions.

Go to the next page.

4-3

Learn More #3:

Categories representing broad groups of goods or services are used to classify the trademark registrations. There are two main classification schemes for goods and services:

International (IC=) — 42 codes
U.S. (CL=) — 63 codes

Every record has both a U.S. and an international class number. It is recommended to use the international classification number for searching.

Classes are also listed as words. When a class code is SELECTed the class text (description) displays in the record as a scope note for identification purposes.

For example, U.S. classes appear as follows:

International classes would appear as:

Use related classes for broadest coverage.

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Search Tip 4-3:

Place the class codes in parentheses and connect them using the OR connector to include all of the trademark records with either of these codes.

Example:

s ic=(41 or 28)
s cl=(22 or 6)