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USPTO Home Pagehttp://www.uspto.gov/

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USPTO Trademark Home Pagehttp://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/index.jsp

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Trademark Searching

• Example: I have a band. I want to protect the name of my band with a trademark. I want to name my band the

“Sun Kings”

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First, find out what International Classification of trademarks, bands would fall in

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Musical bands fall under Class 041

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At the USPTO homepage, start our search

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“Basic Word Mark Search” for words only

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But we are interested in if there are bands with the name Sun Kings

• So we want to go to the structured search and add International Class 41 to our search

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Searching “sun kings” AND International Class 041 as a “Coordinated Class”

(be sure to change the Operator from OR to AND)

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There are 10 hits, but only one of them is “Live”

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Unfortunately, the Live trademark is also in Class 041. Would there be a likelihood of confusion between a Sun King Dance company and a rock & roll band called Sun Kings?What about a marquee at a auditorium that reads Sun King Dance ? Could someone think that it was a dance with the band the Sun Kings playing?

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One could contact Sun King Dance and negotiate with them.Also, one can click on TSDR to see all the “paperwork” that Sun King Dance filled out in obtaining their trademark.

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After clicking on TSDR, at the next page click on “Documents”

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One of the “Dead” registrations was actually a band. Notice that in addition to Class 41, they had also registered for Class 009 – CD’s, etc.

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Logos and Designs. What if I want to trademark a variety of whine I am making that I want to call

“Pink Panda”

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The International Class for wine is033

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For images of pandas go back to our list of searching types and in the Structured search box, click on

Design Search Code Manual

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Choose Keyword Search Then search the word sun

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The Design Code for pandas is03.01.13

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So we can then search for the 03.01.13 design code for pandas – and the words “Pink Panda”

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Neither of the two Live trademark registrations using the name “Pink Panda” and the image of a panda are in Class 033, which is the Class that includes wine

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We should also try searching “Pink Panda” in Class 033 and its Coordinated Classes without any design

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The only Live trademark of Pink Panda and Coordinated Classes of 033 has to do with Live Plants and would most likley not be confused with a wine.

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Trademark held by WIU

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Trademark Process Pagehttp://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/process/index.jsp

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Trademark Electronic Application Pagehttp://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/teas/index.jsp

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http://www.wiu.edu/libraries/govpubs/patents.php