Trademarks
The naming problem most capable of forcing an established business to rebrand. This site issues no trademark verdicts, because a string comparison cannot produce one honestly. What follows is how the question is actually decided, how to search well enough to know when you need help, and how to choose a name and a filing route that give you something worth protecting.
Trademark conflict is about similarity in a market, not identity on a register. Two marks conflict when the names are similar enough and the goods or services are close enough that customers might connect them. An exact-match search can tell you a name is taken. It cannot tell you a name is clear.
Understanding conflict
Start with why “no exact match” is not a clearance. It sets out five ways an exact-match search misses the conflicts that matter: it sees only one spelling, it ignores how the name sounds and what it means, it cannot see unregistered rights, and it flattens the question of related goods into a class number. Then read what a class actually covers. The 45 Nice classes are a filing convention, not a fence. Software sits in two of them, and class 35 does not cover the goods you sell.
Two pages explain the rights that exist outside the obvious places. Rights without registration covers US common-law marks, UK passing off and the position in the EU, and why the earlier user you clash with may not appear on any register. The distinctiveness spectrum explains why descriptive names are hard to protect, from generic through to fanciful, with the court decisions that set the categories.
Searching
Searching the registers covers the free official databases: what each one covers, what none of them show, and how to search so that a clean result means something. For a process that builds those searches into choosing a name from the start, see brainstorming names that clear.
Filing
Where to file is a strategic question, not a formality. EU or national filing explains the EU trade mark's unitary character: one fee covers 27 countries, but one objection anywhere can block it everywhere. It also covers conversion and seniority. The Madrid Protocol covers protecting a mark in many countries through one WIPO application, the fee structure, and the five-year dependency on your home mark that exposes the whole bundle to central attack.
When there is already a conflict
If someone is applying to register your brand, the window to oppose is short and fixed: see opposition windows. The disputes section covers the other routes, and when buying the name is cheaper than fighting for it.
All trademark pages
- Why “no exact match” is not a clearanceFive ways an exact-match search misses the conflicts that matter, including the ones no database holds
- Searching the registersWhich register covers where, what each one will and will not show you, and how to read a result
- What a class actually coversWhy the class number is a filing convention rather than a fence, and how software ends up in two of them
- The distinctiveness spectrumGeneric, descriptive, suggestive, arbitrary, fanciful, and why the name that explains your product is the hardest to own
- Rights without registrationCommon-law marks, passing off, the ™ and ® symbols, and the earlier user you cannot search for
- EU trade mark or national filingsThe unitary character, from both sides, and the conversion safety net
- The Madrid ProtocolOne international application, many national rights, and the five-year dependency
First published 2026-09-27. Rewritten 2026-10-18 to introduce every page in this section. Reference material for people choosing a name, not legal advice.