Searching the UKIPO trademark register
The UK trademark register is public and free to search at gov.uk, and it will tell you in a minute whether somebody has already registered the exact name you have in mind. What it will not tell you is whether a name that is merely similar to yours blocks you, which is the way most applications actually fail.
Where to search
Search for a trade mark on gov.uk is the official UKIPO tool and covers UK registrations and pending applications.
For anything wider, TMview is free and searches the UK, EU and national registers together, which matters if you sell into more than one market.
How to run it properly
Search the word first, on its own, with no styling. A trademark protects the sign, so a word registered as plain text covers it in any typeface, and searching your logo lockup returns nothing useful.
Then search the obvious variants: singular and plural, the name with and without a space or a hyphen, and any spelling that sounds the same said aloud. "Kwikfit" and "Quickfit" conflict, and only one of them turns up if you search one spelling.
Then filter by class. A hit in a class nowhere near your goods is usually irrelevant, and a hit in your class matters even when the name is only close.
What the status column means
| Status | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| Registered | Live and enforceable. Treat as a blocker in overlapping classes |
| Pending, published | Filed and in its opposition window. Could still be opposed or refused |
| Expired | Lapsed, but may be restorable for a period after expiry |
| Withdrawn or refused | Never got there. No longer a blocker |
An expired mark is not automatically free ground. UK registrations can be restored within a window after expiry, and the previous owner may still hold unregistered rights through use.
What the free search will not do
Three things, and they are the three that decide most cases.
It does not assess similarity. It returns what matches the string you typed, not what a hearing officer would consider confusingly similar to it.
It does not weigh the goods. Whether class 25 clothing and class 35 retail of clothing overlap enough to conflict is a judgement, not a filter.
It does not find unregistered rights. A business trading under a name for years without registering it can still stop you in the UK through passing off, and nothing on the register shows that.
When to pay for a search instead
When you are about to spend money on the name. A UK search from us costs €230 for one class and an EU search with a written opinion across three classes costs €358, and what you are buying is the opinion rather than the list. Clearance searches covers what that includes.
Run the free search first regardless. It costs nothing and it rules out the names that were never going to work.