In Canada/North America, is there a free way to search for companies to see what isn't trademarked?

Question

This question is for a family member of mine who's starting a company as a hobby. She has a name in mind she wants to use for her product, but she doesn't want to invest money registering the business because she doesn't plan on making a lot of money.

Is there anyway to search to see whether she's using a name that's already been taken by a company (other than google, since it doesn't index anything that's not on the net)? She doesn't want to get sued for using that name with her product.

Answer 1

I listed some links where you can do some preliminary name checking. However, please be aware that this is merely scratching the surface of what's out there.

Only comprehensive research will tell you if the name is truly available. But, these links are free & a great place to start, so I'd try them out first.

Comprehensive research for the US consists of looking at marks that are similar in Sound, Appearance or Meaning in the pending & registered Federal AND State trademark files as well as the US National Common-Law files.

Comprehensive research for Canada consists of looking at marks that are similar in Sound, Appearance or Meaning in the pending & registered trademark files as well as the Common-Law files.

There are other sites that offer free searching capabilities in conjunction with their commercial services, so I'm not able to post those links due to the Yahoo! TOS. You'll also want to check domain names & yellow pages, so simply do a search for "free domain name search" and "national yellowpages" and the appropriate links will pop up.

Hope that helps! I wish you much success & happiness in all your ventures!