Knockout Search: Check Trademark Availability Before Filing

Before filing a trademark, you need to know if conflicting marks already exist. GleanMark's Knockout Search runs the same multi-step analysis a USPTO examining attorney would — phonetic matching, visual similarity, coordinated class checks, and foreign equivalents — and returns risk-scored results in seconds.

What You Can Do

• Check a proposed mark against all live federal trademarks (every active pending and registered mark)
• See conflicts grouped by risk level (High, Medium, Low) with a summary verdict
• Understand exactly how each conflict was found (phonetic, visual, semantic, etc.)
• Save searches and revisit them from the Analysis Hub
• Copy a link to your search results to share with colleagues
• Run a full Clearance Report for attorney-grade analysis

How It Works

1. Sign in and navigate to Knockout — Click "Knockout" under the Search menu in the sidebar. Knockout requires an account — new users can start at /knockout-search to learn about the feature first.
2. Enter your proposed mark — Type the trademark name in the "Enter Your Proposed Mark" field
3. Select Nice classes — Use the class picker to choose the international classes your goods or services fall under. This focuses the search on commercially relevant conflicts.
4. Add a goods description (optional) — Describe your goods or services in plain language. This helps GleanMark suggest relevant Nice classes for your search.
5. Click "Run Examiner Knockout Search" — The search runs multiple examiner-style strategies and returns results once complete.
6. Review the verdict — The Risk Assessment Summary shows one of three outcomes: High Risk Conflicts Found (significant conflicts detected), Medium Risk Conflicts Found (moderate conflicts worth investigating), or No Significant Conflicts (no meaningful conflicts found)
7. Examine individual conflicts — Results are grouped into High, Medium, and Low risk sections. Each result shows the conflicting mark name, owner, registration status, Nice classes, how it was discovered (discovery method badges), and a risk level.

Examiner-Style Search Methods

Knockout Search doesn't just run a text match. It applies multiple examiner-style search strategies, the same approaches a USPTO examining attorney uses when reviewing applications:

• Exact Match — Direct word-for-word match against the full trademark database
• Phonetic (Double Metaphone) — Finds marks that sound alike, even if spelled differently. "FONE" matches "PHONE", "KOOL" matches "COOL"
• Consonant Skeleton — Strips vowels to find structural similarities. "STRIPES" matches "STRIPS"
• Trigram (Visual Similarity) — Character-level comparison catches marks that look alike on paper
• Component Intersection — Breaks multi-word marks into parts and checks if all words appear in existing marks
• Component + Coordinated Classes — Checks individual words against marks in the same or related product/service classes
• Component Phonetic — Runs phonetic matching on each individual word in a multi-word mark
• Design Code — Searches design codes for marks with logos or stylized elements
• Foreign Equivalents — Applies the Doctrine of Foreign Equivalents — if your mark contains a foreign word, it finds English translations and vice versa

The number of steps that run depends on the mark. Simple single-word marks may skip component-based steps, while multi-word marks with foreign elements run the full suite.

Understanding Risk Levels

Each conflict receives a risk level based on a confusion score that combines mark similarity and commercial overlap:

Risk Level	What It Means
High	Significant conflict. Strongly consider a different mark or consult an attorney.
Medium	Moderate similarity. Review the specific goods/services overlap carefully.
Low	Minimal concern. Mark differences or class distance reduce risk.

The summary counts how many conflicts fall into each level. Very high similarity marks (near-identical spelling) are always flagged as High risk regardless of class distance.

Tips & Best Practices

• Always specify Nice classes — Without them, the search can't assess commercial overlap, and every phonetically similar mark looks like a conflict
• Try variations — If your proposed mark is "BluePeak", also search "Blue Peak" (two words) and "BLUEPEAK" (one word)
• Check the discovery method badges — Each result shows how it was found. A mark found by multiple methods (phonetic + trigram + component) is a stronger conflict than one found by a single method
• Use "Run Clearance Search" for important filings — Knockout gives the quick pass/fail. A Clearance Report adds domain availability, web presence, DuPont analysis, and a formal recommendation

What's Included in Each Plan

Feature	Starter	Professional	Firm
Knockout searches	5/month	25/seat/month	Unlimited
All search methods	Yes	Yes	Yes
Save searches	Yes	Yes	Yes
Clearance Report upgrade	Separate	Included	Included

Related Features

• Markus AI — Ask Markus to run a knockout search conversationally
• Setting Up Alerts — Monitor for new filings that conflict with your marks after you've filed

Need Help?

If you have questions about Knockout Search or interpreting results, click the chat icon in the bottom right or email support@gleanmark.com.