Trademark Clearance (Freedom to Use)

Freedom To Use. Are you going to get sued for using a mark or just kicked off your website or kicked out of one of the e-commerce sites. Well, that’s the question that a Freedom To Use search seeks to answer; and like other kinds of searches, it really starts with a comprehensive search because searching the Trademark Office isn’t enough because not all marks that are registered with Amazon or registered with the State or exist at Common Law are going to be found in the U.S. Trademark database. 

So, when looking at Freedom To Use, we’re going to look at two questions: One is, does the mark already exist in any of these systems? And then the 2nd question we’re going to look at is, Is the mark that you want to use confusingly similar with any of the marks that we find?  

So, this is a process there are a lot of little steps that we go through in formulating that question of confusing similarity and those are — we call them “legal magic words.” 

So, if you’re interested in whether you can use a name, slogan, or logo without getting sued or shut down through any of these channels of commerce, give me a call, send us a note, and let’s have a consultation.