TM TKO is happy to announce that we are in the process of incorporating common-law business entity data into the TM TKO platform. How will we make use of this new data set?

Manual Search

The first place you will see this is in manual search, the Search option in your top menu. The “Business Listing” tab lets you search by a variety of fields, including a wide range of name search options, geographical options (including state and regional CSA data), SIC codes, and the International Class equivalents of common SIC codes. How can you use this?

This is immediately a valuable adjunct to your clearance efforts. Just plug in a key term from your mark, limit to an international class (and/or its coordinated classes), and you’re off and running with additional results.

In an Office Action Response or TTAB proceeding, evidence of common-law co-existence can be extremely valuable. For instance, the Federal Circuit strongly emphasized the importance of common-law uses of the term “Blue Moon” in the food and restaurant space. In re Coors Brewing, Co., 343 F.3d 1340, 68 USPQ2d 1059, 1061 (Fed. Cir. 2003). Let’s create a quick search to identify this sort of data.

You can quickly identify nearly 200 “Blue Moon” marks in the space, from restaurants to liquor stores and more. You’ll get both a chart with selectable data records, and the ability to pop open further details about the business, like its approximate age, sales, employees, and website, if available. The following screenshot provides an example.

Knockout Search

The business listing data will be incorporated into knockout search results next, providing additional depth in the reports and, later, additional details about entities that own trademark registrations that appear in the reports.

New Products

Keep an eye out for new products coming out this winter that will incorporate common-law data! We can’t spill the beans yet, but we’re very excited about the potential they have to change the way to practice.