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Trademark Search Integration Guide

Use POST /v1/trademarks/search to screen a proposed sign against registered trademarks in the ingested IGE dataset.

This guide explains how partner applications and internal review tools can consume trademark matches as an additional screening signal.

Suggested UX flow

  1. User or operator provides the proposed brand/sign.
  2. Backend calls POST /v1/trademarks/search.
  3. If known, include intended niceClasses so goods/services overlap can influence ranking.
  4. UI displays candidate marks grouped by risk, with matching reasons and class context.
  5. Legal or operations reviewers decide whether follow-up review is needed.

What to show in the UI

  • the normalized input echo from input
  • the matched trademark text and registration identifiers
  • risk as the first-level routing signal
  • matchBasis[] as human-readable explainability support
  • classOverlap and relatedClassOverlap when Nice classes matter to the workflow
  • the trademark lifecycle dates applicationDate, registrationDate, and expiryDate (ISO timestamps; any may be null) to give reviewers status context
  • markCategory and markFeatureCategory (both sourced from the IGE register, WIPO ST.66) when you want to distinguish the legal mark type and the type of sign

Mark category fields

These two fields describe different things and should not be confused:

Field Meaning Observed values
markCategory Legal type of the mark Individual mark, Collective mark, Certification mark
markFeatureCategory Type of sign / how the mark is represented Word, Combined, Figurative, Three dimensional, Sound, Colour, Position, Motion, Hologram

Values are passed through verbatim from the IGE register, so treat the lists above as the common (not exhaustive) values and always handle null. The vast majority of records are markCategory = "Individual mark" with markFeatureCategory being Word, Combined, or Figurative.

Decision mapping example

  • High: escalate to legal or trademark review before continuing.
  • Medium: continue only with explicit operator visibility or case-note capture.
  • Low: advisory signal only, unless your business policy requires broader review.

Implementation tips

  • Treat this endpoint as screening support, not as a legal clearance opinion.
  • Provide niceClasses whenever your workflow knows the intended goods/services scope.
  • Persist match snapshots if analysts need an audit trail.
  • Combine trademark search with POST /v1/name/assessment and POST /v1/conflicts/search rather than replacing either one.