- within International Law topic(s)
- with readers working within the Technology industries
While naming challenges and cross-registry clearance projects can be complex, your trademark search process doesn't have to be. We share how Questel's integrated trademark search platform is helping companies across all sectors to craft precise multi-source searches, automate accurate risk assessments, and deliver vital insights for high-stakes decision-making.
From pharma to footwear, every sector has its unique trademark search challenges. However, by combining extensive datasets with domain expertise and tailored technology, the right trademark search platform should deliver comprehensive and reliable search results no matter your industry or projects.
In our recent webinar, 'Markify: "One tool for all"––Discover our use cases across Pharma, Veterinary, and Technical Domains,' Marie Farges, Questel's Client Solutions Specialist Manager, and Leslie Meritt, Client Solutions Specialist, showcased the benefits of selecting the Markify Clearance & Watch Platform. Here, we summarize the key points from that discussion.
Three Crucial Factors for Successful Trademark Search Projects
1. Comprehensive Data
Comprehensive data is vital for every type of trademark search, but few industries have as extensive a volume of data sources as the pharmaceutical industry. From regulatory compliance to scientific precision and distinctiveness, pharma researchers need to consider a wide range of complex factors when naming new drugs.
- Regulatory compliance: The drug name must comply with trademark offices and drug regulatory agencies.
- Scientific precision: The name should not mislead consumers regarding therapeutic effects, composition, or safety.
- Distinctiveness: The name should be distinct from other product names.
We designed Markify to help you address all your pharma trademark search needs in one place, including trademark registry data, regulatory information, industry-specific common law sources, and the official POCA Score (which indicates orthographic and phonetic similarity) as maintained by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
By choosing our pharmaceutical trademark search and clearance solutions, you can utilize our AI-driven search to perform pharma trademark searches separately or in combination with other sources.
Searching for Pharma-Specific Data: Ozempic
For example, let's look at one of today's hottest trends, Ozempic.
When ordering a combined search for pharma and trademarks, you will get four types of results using the Markify trademark search platform:
- The Trademarks tab displays the results produced by Markify's proprietary algorithm filtered by risk level (1 being very high risk).
- The Trademark (POCA) tab displays the results sorted by the POCA algorithm (you will see that the number of results and their sequence is different from the first tab).
- The Pharma tab lists all similar pharmaceutical results (pharma-in-use and other pharma sources), and also has a POCA ranking.
- Finally, the Merged (pharma) tab displays a combination of the Trademark (POCA) and Pharma tab info, grouping results by name and highlighting matches where a name is both trademark-protected and in use in pharma.
You can also fold and expand different sections to shift your focus when you're analyzing results, so results are clear and convenient at every step.
90+ Pharma In-Use and Other Pharma Sources—and Counting!
You might be interested to learn that the merged (pharma) feature was developed following a request from clients to save time switching between tabs. Indeed, many of our features are developed this way. In collaboration with clients, we're continuously evolving the Markify user interface and adding new data sources. Another notable example here is the addition of International Non-proprietary Names (INN) stems, which contain common stems and their definitions as selected by World Health Organization (WHO) experts.
Additional pharma sources include British Approved Names (BAN), Canadian Drug Products Database, Canadian Licensed Natural Health Products Database, Drugs@FDA, European Medicines Agency (EMA—Article 57), FDA Orange Book, Green Book, INN, NDC (National Drug Code Directory), Pharma In-use, Purple Book, RxNorm, USAN, and USAN stems.
From Boolean Operators to AI: Three Ways to Build a Search
Since we all come to the table with different experiences, our Markify trademark search platform also offers users the chance to build a search on their own terms.
- If you know and love Boolean operators, we've got a query builder for you.
- If you don't know the operators but like the idea of building your own query, you can take advantage of our Boolean presets.
- If you like both AI-driven and Boolean searching, you can combine them.
Searching for Pharma-Specific Data: Boolean Search Example
Our Boolean search 'presets' will allow you to focus on the trickiest results that fit your detailed parameters.
In this example, our team searched for 'Petsure' in class 5 via the Boolean search presets, restricting results to specific similarities shown below. In particular, we wanted to be sure there are no other products in the same class utilizing the last six characters of this name.
As you can see, the 'Preview meta' displays what results to expect, allowing you to quickly reference the number and name of hits found. This ensures you're on the right track before initiating a full search.
One of the biggest challenges for pharma searches is that trademark names are often partly descriptive. Our presets enable you to quickly focus on a specific part of your trademark when building searches in Markify. Of course, these presets are relevant for all sectors, not only pharma trademarks.
2. Continuous Evolution: Data
Markify has a data acquisition team of more than 25+ data specialists, meaning that we are constantly reviewing our databases to ensure we are providing clients with access to the best and most comprehensive data. However, it's not simply a question of data entry; our data specialists also bring deep domain expertise to their work, meaning they are focused on understanding, analyzing, reformatting, cleaning, and validating data, so it is optimized for our algorithm and user needs.
The Green Book is another example of a database that was added to the Markify Search Platform following a client request.
Veterinary Specifics: Green Book
The Green Book is the official database of all FDA-approved animal (veterinary) drug products, covering both 'pioneer' proprietary names and generic animal drugs.
While it is not legally mandatory to search in human medicine databases when filing a trademark for a veterinary product, it is strongly recommended. This helps avoid conflicts with existing human pharmaceutical trademarks, which are often considered in likelihood-of-confusion assessments due to overlapping classes (e.g., class 5) and similar healthcare channels.
With the Markify search platform, you can search across veterinary product databases and 'human' pharma ones to avoid any likelihood of confusion. And the Green Book is only one example of our veterinary-specific datasets; it's also possible to search in Markify against the FDA's Purple Book for biological products and the Orange Book of approved drugs.
Searching for Veterinary-Specific Data: Nexgard
For example, let's run a search in the Green Book for Nexgard (an anti-parasitic for dogs):
Next, let's compare that with a search for Cidirol, a trademark covering veterinary products, that was revoked on the grounds of non-use. As you can see, the search revealed a lot of trademark information, but no presence in the Green Book:
Note: the algorithm provides results in Russian (Cyrillic), not only in the Latin alphabet, since it provides non-Latin names transliterations.
3. Integrated Technology, including AI
These example searches for pharma and veterinary illustrate the scope of our databases, but, of course, Markify is a tool for all industries. This can be seen in the technological evolution of the platform and datasets. Let's take, as an example, a feature currently in Beta test mode: Our AI goods & services (G&S) similarity search.
Our AI Roadmap and Markify
AI technology can streamline trademark analysis by quickly identifying similar G&S descriptions, translating terms, and suggesting synonyms. Let's look at an example of our AI G&S similarity analysis, using the mark Skylo for running shoes.
We believe AI and automation can support trademark teams to run search projects more effectively, especially those IP teams managing large volumes of trademark search requests.
During our live session, nearly80% of attendeessaid they could see themselves using AI tools to assist with reviewing trademark search results. What about you? Could AI help simplify your trademark review process?
Introducing Qthena, Our Dedicated AI Assistant for IP Productivity
Did you know you can rapidly generate AI-supported risk assessment drafts from search results with Qthena?
The AI model recognizes the linguistic proximity between the trademarks to quickly assess risks, identify potential conflicts, and compare trademarks.
But that's not all. You can evaluate and analyze the results further by chatting with the generative AI assistant to clarify any trademark questions, query the importance of selected trademarks, and instruct it to prepare first drafts of legal opinion for your review.
Other 'skills' for trademarks are available in Qthena, including G&S drafting and office action response management. Find out about the full range of capabilities by watching our webinar ' Experience AI Copilots in Action'.
Looking Behind the Scenes at Markify
The Markify Clearance and Watch Platform is at the heart of Questel's end-to-end trademark services, so by choosing our search solution, you can also benefit from our ongoing investment in technology and integration. Thanks to the Markify APIs, for example, our clients can already benefit from access to our accurate and comprehensive datasets in their IP management systems and software.
The features and capabilities covered in this article are only some of the recent innovations in the Markify Search & Watch Platform. To find out more about any of the search technologies and techniques discussed in this article, watch our webinar ' Markify: One Tool for All ' or contact our subject matter experts.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
