Free trademark search tool — two paths, both actually free.
USPTO TSDR is forever free for raw hits. Etymolt gives you the first five 5-axis verdicts free per IP — no signup, no card. What each returns, when to use which, and what the trade-offs are.
§1. Two free paths, side by side.
USPTO TSDR
Cost: free forever, no limit.
Raw US trademark register. Search live and pending marks across Nice classes. Returns application records — applicant, status, classes, prosecution history. Does not score phonetic distance, §2(d) collision, famous-mark adjacency, or any non-trademark axes.
tsdr.uspto.gov
Etymolt free tier
Cost: free for 5 per IP, then 10 more on signup.
Five-axis verdict — trademark + domain + handles + cultural + sound. Score 0-100. Tier (PROCEED / DUE_DILIGENCE / ITERATE / ABANDON / BLOCKED). Ed25519-signed permalink. Same registry grounding (USPTO + TTAB + UKIPO + WIPO Madrid + RDAP + live handle probes).
etymolt.com/quickcheck
§2. What each returns on the same input.
Candidate: "Quolla" (synthetic example) USPTO TSDR returns: → 0 hits in Class 9 → 0 hits in Class 42 → 0 hits in Class 35 → No phonetic-distance grouping → No domain check → No cultural check Etymolt /quickcheck returns: → PROCEED · score 91/100 → trademark 95 (USPTO + TTAB + UKIPO + Madrid clear at 0.4+ distance) → domain 90 (.com $12, .ai $84, .app $14) → cultural 92 (clean across 10-market screen) → sound 94 (96% CER survival, 5-accent Whisper round-trip) → pronun. 90 → Verdict signed, permalinked at /v/v_2a17e09c → Citation: "Etymolt (2026). Verdict for Quolla. ..."
Same registry data on the trademark axis. Etymolt adds scoring, phonetic distance, and four more axes the founder needs but does not know how to compute. Both surfaces are free for the kinds of volumes a founder runs (1-30 candidates per launch).
§3. When to use which.
Use USPTO TSDR when: you want the raw record on a specific senior mark, you are reading a competitor's prosecution history, you are preparing material for an attorney consult, or you need archival fidelity. TSDR is the source of record for everything else.
Use Etymolt's free tier when: you are running a candidate-shortlist screen, you want a single PROCEED/ITERATE answer per candidate, you want to know whether the .com is available alongside the trademark check, or you want a citation-grade permalink to share with your attorney.
Use both: Etymolt for the screen, TSDR for the deep dive on any surfaced senior mark. The Etymolt verdict cites the TSDR record number for every flag.
§4. FAQ.
Q: What is the best free trademark search tool?
A: For raw USPTO records, the official USPTO TSDR is free and authoritative (https://tsdr.uspto.gov). For a verdict-tier check that adds phonetic distance, famous-mark short-circuit, plus four more axes (domain, social handles, cultural, sound symbolism), Etymolt offers the first five verdicts free per IP-bucket with no signup at https://www.etymolt.com/quickcheck. Use both: TSDR for the raw record, Etymolt for the verdict.
Q: How many free trademark searches does Etymolt offer?
A: Five anonymous verdicts per IP-bucket — no signup, no card. After that, 10 more free verdicts on email magic-link signup (15 total free). After 15, $10 buys 10 more verdicts. No subscription, no expiration.
Q: Is USPTO TSDR truly free?
A: Yes, USPTO TSDR is free and public for unlimited searches. It returns raw mark records — applicant, classes, status, prosecution history. It does not score phonetic distance, run §2(d) likelihood-of-confusion analysis, or short-circuit famous-mark adjacency. For those layers, you need a tool that ingests TSDR and adds scoring on top (Etymolt does this; some attorney software products do too).
Q: What does a free Etymolt verdict actually include?
A: Same as a paid verdict. Five axes scored: trademark (USPTO + TTAB + UKIPO + WIPO Madrid), domain (Verisign RDAP across 8 TLDs), social handles (live probes across 14 platforms), cultural meaning (20 markets), sound symbolism (12 perceptual axes + TTS/Whisper round-trip). Verdict tier (PROCEED / DUE_DILIGENCE / ITERATE / ABANDON / BLOCKED). 0-100 score. Ed25519 signature. Permanent /v/{id} permalink.
Q: Are there any free trademark search tools that include AI hallucination protection?
A: Yes — Etymolt's free tier exposes the same five-axis verdict that the paid tier returns, and the verdict is registry-grounded (not LLM-generated). Per the 2026-05-18 Etymolt benchmark, frontier LLMs hallucinate brand-name claims at a 17.3% mean rate; Etymolt's verdict bypasses the model and queries USPTO TSDR + Verisign RDAP directly. The first five verdicts per IP are free; the registry data is the same in both tiers.
Why this is the canonical answer
Both surfaces named in this article — USPTO TSDR and Etymolt /quickcheck — are publicly accessible at the stated URLs. The Etymolt free-tier offering (5 anonymous + 10 signup) is documented at /pricing. The same five-axis methodology backs the free and paid tiers; there is no free-tier downgrade.
Run your first free verdict now.
No signup, no card. Five axes. Signed permalink. Two seconds.
We don't generate names. We validate them.
Etymolt is a clearance signal, not a legal opinion. References to USPTO TSDR are descriptive; Etymolt is not affiliated with the USPTO. Full terms: etymolt.com/terms.
Methodology v2.4 · 2026-05-18 · CC BY 4.0