Clients use searches to evaluate the risks of adopting a particular mark.
The consequences of an adverse result in litigation or before the Patent and Trademark Office can differ drastically from case to case. An in-house knockout search covers registrations and applications pending before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and U.S. state registrations, whereas a full search covers both of those sources as well as hundreds of databases of common law, unregistered marks the use of which may potentially create a conflict with the mark searched. Thus, an in-house search is less comprehensive, but less costly, than a full search. Our clearance reports are not formal opinions of the Firm. Formal opinion letters require painstaking preparation and thorough peer review.