Canadian Trademarks Database (1 Viewing)

Search - Canadian Trademarks Database - Intellectual property and copyright - Canadian Intellectual Property Office - Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada

Use it to find out if there is a trademark on your domain name

Nice, thanx

Hey everyone,

I'm seeking advice on the level of effort needed for trademark searches for my desired domains. Should I rely solely on CIPO or explore other avenues? Are there additional tools I should consider? And how much time and energy should I allocate to this task?

In a hypothetical scenario, let's say I'm interested in a generic term like "chickensoup," but no one owns the trademark for it. While the absence of a trademark might seem like smooth sailing, I'm wondering: Will CIPO display any existing businesses with that name? Could this potentially pose a problem, especially considering the distinction between searching for a trademark and searching for a business name?

Additionally, I'm curious if searching for 'chicken soup' as a single term is sufficient, or if I should also search 'chicken' and 'soup' separately to cover all bases?

Your insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Hello,

In addition to CIPO, which is Canadian specific, I would recommend using the global trademark search provided by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) at Global Brand Database

It has a much cleaner interface (imho) and better search/filtering capabilities, and it is global. However, Canadian information may be a week or two behind CIPO database.

Trademarks are dependent upon the industry/service (called the NICE classification). That is why two different companies can have a trademark using the same word. For example, Apple Computers and Apple Auto Glass. They provide different products/services but both have the word 'apple' in their trademark and there is no conflict.

Additionally, you can own and use a trademarked name in a domain name so long as you are not violating a registered trademark. For example, if you owned chevrolet.com (or .ca!) you could sell computers under that name (as long as there is no "Chevrolet" computer company with a Canadian trademark on that word), but you could not use it for your used car sales business.

The type of trademark is very important. With domain names, we are really only interested in 'word' trademarks. However, trademarks can be other things also, such as logos (e.g; Coca-Cola logo), sounds (e.g; MS Windows startup sound), etc.

Also, beware of similar sounding trademarks. A very interesting read about a Canadian legal trademark case can be found here.

It is important to note that a trademark registration does not automatically grant you rights to the domain name. Also, trademark searches do not typically include business names unless the business name is trademarked also.

For completeness, I would recommend doing similar searches - chicken, soup, "chicken soup" and chickensoup.

Note that I am not a trademark expert; just a guy who has done some research on the topic. For authoritative trademark information I would recommend consulting a professional trademark lawyer.

Hope this helps!

Wayne said:

It has a much cleaner interface (imho) and better search/filtering capabilities, and it is global. However, Canadian information may be a week or two behind CIPO database.

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Wow, very nice

Also, trademark searches do not typically include business names unless the business name is trademarked also.

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Do you try to search for business names as well? If so, where?

For completeness, I would recommend doing similar searches - chicken, soup, "chicken soup" and chickensoup.

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Thanks for this! Initially, I searched for the two words in my domain like so: "chickensoup" and "chicken soup". After applying your advice, I noticed a pending trademark that combines one word from my domain with a different word, not in my domain. I believe this trademark could potentially cause a conflict, depending on how my domain is used in the future. This is valuable information to pass on to a potential end user interested in my domain.

Hope this helps!

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Thanks a lot!

Business Searches

Federal and provincial business searches can be conducted via the following websites (note that most are free, but some may require registration and or fees):

Canadian Federal Corporations
Ontario
BC
Quebec
Manitoba
Saskatchewan
Alberta
Newfoundland
PEI
New Brunswick
Nova Scotia
Yukon
NWT
Nunavut

Regional Chambers of Commerce are also and excellent resource for locating businesses.

(yes, i'm an OSINT junkie!)

I recently found this site as well: MRAS Business Registry Search

From the website:

About Canada’s Business Registries​

This free government service gives you access to information about businesses within Canada.

You can search for a business by name or number (either Business Number or Registry ID). The results will show the:

• legal name
• status
• location
• province or territory where the business is registered
• direct link to the official registry source for more details

How we update this service​

As of now, we get information from the official registries of:

• Alberta
• British Columbia
• Corporations Canada
• Manitoba
• Nova Scotia
• Ontario
• Quebec

This service lets you search across these registries at one time. Information from these registries may be updated on a daily or monthly basis. We are working to add more registries. You should check the source of the official registry for the most current information.

Information on financial institutions, such as banks or insurance companies, is not part of this service.

A free government service​

This service is a joint effort by the Canadian Association of Corporate Law Administrators. We oversee all of the official business registries in Canada.

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