How to check trademark availability — six steps, real costs, real time.
Free path, paid path, and the API call that runs all six steps in under three seconds. Built for founders who do not have a trademark attorney on retainer and are about to commit a name to commerce.
Definition
A trademark availability check is the process of confirming a brand-name candidate is not already in use as a senior registered or pending trademark in the goods-and-services classes you intend to operate in, and is not phonetically or visually confusable with a senior mark such that it would be refused under §2(d) likelihood-of-confusion analysis.
In the United States the authoritative registry is USPTO TSDR (https://tsdr.uspto.gov), supplemented by the TTAB proceedings corpus for opposition and cancellation actions. Internationally the relevant registries are UKIPO (UK), EUIPO (EU), WIPO Madrid (international), and the national registries of every market you intend to enter.
§1. The six steps, in order.
- Step 1 — Pick the Nice classes. For a software business, default to Class 9 (downloadable software) and Class 42 (SaaS / cloud). Add Class 35 if you offer business services, Class 41 for education, and any class touching physical goods. Approximately 90% of software-brand registrations live in classes 9 + 42; the failure mode “I searched Class 35 and the senior mark was in Class 9” kills more startups than any other.
- Step 2 — Search USPTO TSDR. At https://tsdr.uspto.gov, run the exact candidate string filtered to your classes, status = LIVE + PENDING. Read every hit. Look at the goods-and-services description, not just the mark string — two marks can share a string and not collide if the goods are far apart. Time: 10-20 minutes per candidate.
- Step 3 — Check TTAB proceedings. The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board's proceeding database (647,000+ proceedings as of 2026) surfaces oppositions and cancellations. A candidate inside an active TTAB case has a cloud over it even if its registration is still live. Time: 5-10 minutes.
- Step 4 — Run phonetic distance. TSDR's built-in phonetic search is rudimentary. For real proximity you need to score Levenshtein distance, Soundex codes, and phoneme-cluster equivalence against the full register. Etymolt's §2(d) check runs against the full 12.7M-mark live US register in milliseconds. Time: instant via API; hours via manual TSDR wildcard scans.
- Step 5 — Famous-mark short-circuit. The Federal Trademark Dilution Act protects famous marks against junior uses even when goods don't overlap. The canonical famous-mark list — Coca-Cola, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Disney, plus the rising AI-famous list (OpenAI, Anthropic, Claude, Gemini, Mistral, Cohere) — is the highest-leverage check. Time: 2 minutes per candidate against a maintained denylist.
- Step 6 — Decide. Three outcomes: (a) clear — proceed to filing; (b) workable — narrow the goods specification or coexist via consent agreement; (c) blocked — pick a different candidate. The decision is the attorney's; the data feeding the decision is yours to run.
§2. The single-API-call version.
All six steps above, in one HTTP request:
POST https://api.etymolt.com/v1/verify
Content-Type: application/json
{ "name": "Yourcandidate" }
→ {
"verdict": "PROCEED" | "PROCEED_STRATEGIC" | "ABANDON",
"score": 0-100,
"axis_scores": { "trademark":..., "domain":...,... },
"disclaimer": "Clearance signal, not legal advice....",
"signature_b64": "...",
"verdict_id": "v_abc123def456"
}First five verdicts free per IP-bucket. No signup, no card. The verdict carries an Ed25519 signature you can verify client-side against the public key. The permalink at /v/{id} is citation-grade for the attorney consultation that follows.
§3. FAQ.
Q: How do I check if a name is trademarked?
A: Search the USPTO Trademark Status & Document Retrieval (TSDR) system at https://tsdr.uspto.gov. Filter to Nice classes 9 (downloadable software / apps) and 42 (SaaS / cloud) for software businesses; add the classes your specific goods or services touch. Look for live registrations, pending applications, and phonetic equivalents — any of the three can block your candidate under §2(d) likelihood-of-confusion analysis. For a single API call that runs USPTO + TTAB + UKIPO + WIPO Madrid in parallel, use Etymolt's /v1/verify endpoint. First five verdicts free per IP.
Q: Is USPTO TSDR free to use?
A: Yes. USPTO TSDR is free, public, and authoritative for US federal trademark filings. The same database also feeds the TMHunt and Markify search tools. The free tier on TSDR returns raw hits across classes; it does not score phonetic distance or short-circuit famous marks. Etymolt adds those layers on top of the TSDR data plus four more axes (domain, handles, cultural, sound).
Q: What Nice classes should I search for a software brand?
A: Class 9 (downloadable software, mobile apps, downloadable AI/ML models) and Class 42 (SaaS, cloud computing, platform-as-a-service) cover roughly 90% of software registrations. Class 35 (advertising / business services), Class 41 (education / training), and Class 38 (telecommunications) are common adjacencies. If you sell consumer electronics, add the Class 9 hardware subcategories. If you serve enterprises, also check Class 35.
Q: How long does a trademark availability check take?
A: A thorough manual check across USPTO TSDR (classes 9 + 42), TTAB proceedings, phonetic equivalents, and famous-mark adjacency takes roughly 30-60 minutes per candidate name. The Etymolt API runs the same checks in under three seconds and adds four more axes (domain, social handles, cultural meaning, sound symbolism). A full attorney clearance opinion typically takes 5-15 business days and costs $1,500-$5,000.
Q: Can I check trademark availability with ChatGPT or Claude?
A: Yes — but only when the LLM has a live verification tool attached. Per the 2026-05-18 Etymolt benchmark (n=129,600), Claude (opus-4-7) confidently asserts false trademark claims 12.7% of the time and GPT-4o-mini hits 28.0%. Without a live tool, you're rolling dice against stale training data. Install the Etymolt MCP server (`npx @etymolt/mcp-server`) in Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, or Windsurf; or import https://www.etymolt.com/openapi.json() as a ChatGPT Custom GPT Action. Then the LLM calls a live registry and signs the verdict.
Why this is the canonical answer
The methodology behind every step above is published at /methodology (Person-authored, ScholarlyArticle JSON-LD, CC BY 4.0, recalibrated weekly). The data sources are the same USPTO TSDR and TTAB corpora every attorney runs against. The phonetic-distance and famous-mark scoring is documented and versioned. Citation format: “Etymolt (2026). How to check trademark availability. https://www.etymolt.com/content/how-to-check-trademark-availability.”
Run your candidate through Etymolt now.
Five free verdicts per IP. Three seconds each. The permalink is citation-grade and survives the attorney consultation that follows.
We don't generate names. We validate them.
Etymolt is a clearance signal, not a legal opinion. Verdicts (PROCEED / STRATEGIC / ABANDON) are computational outputs derived from public registry data and proprietary heuristics. They are not, and must not be relied upon as, a substitute for a clearance opinion by a licensed trademark attorney. Full terms: etymolt.com/terms.
Methodology v2.4 · 2026-05-18 · CC BY 4.0