TESS Search: USPTO Field Code Search

TESS Search lets you build examiner-style structured searches with wildcards, phonetic expansion, and set operations — the field-code syntax practitioners knew from the USPTO's TESS system, over GleanMark's copy of the register.

Open it at /tess-search. It is marked Beta. There is a public reference guide at /tess-search-guide that you can read without signing in, and the in-app Field Code Reference sheet has the same tables.

If you want likelihood-of-confusion review without writing query syntax, use Knockout Search or a Clearance Report instead.

Two Ways to Build a Search

The page has two modes:

• Form — build your search using form fields. Good for getting started; you can click Show Query to see the syntax it produced.
• Query — type field-code syntax directly.

A query looks like this:

*aurora*[comb] AND "028"[ic] AND NOT dead[ld]

Read it right to left: the value comes first, the field code follows in square brackets. Press Ctrl+Enter (Cmd+Enter on a Mac) to run it.

Field Codes

Code	Searches
[comb]	Mark name
[comb:word]	Mark name, whole-word match
[fm]	Mark name, exact match
[on]	Owner name
[gs]	Goods and services
[ic]	Nice class
[cc]	Nice class, expanded to coordinated classes
[us]	US subclass
[dc]	Design code
[sn]	Serial number
[rn]	Registration number
[fd]	Filing date range
[rd]	Registration date range
[ld]	Live or dead
[st]	Standard character marks
[rg]	Register — principal or supplemental
[md]	Mark type — word, design or combined
[cb]	Current filing basis
[cf]	Color family
[cs]	Color shade
[ds]	Registration status — registered, pending, cancelled or abandoned
[dm]	Mark description text

[cf], [cs], [ds] and [dm] are GleanMark extensions with no TESS equivalent.

Several codes take an :all variant — [on:all], [gs:all], [ic:all], [dm:all] — which requires every value to match rather than any of them. Codes are case-insensitive, so [COMB] and [comb] both work.

Dates accept YYYY-MM-DD or YYYYMMDD, and * makes a range open-ended: 2023-01-01:*[fd].

Operators and Wildcards

Wildcards

Symbol	Matches	Example
*	Zero or more characters	ZEB* matches ZEBRA, ZEB
?	Exactly one character	?OG matches DOG, FOG, LOG

A term with no wildcard is treated as "contains".

Operators

• All clauses in a query are combined with AND. Writing AND between them is optional — *aurora*[comb] "028"[ic] means the same thing.
• NOT works on [ld] and [rg] only. On any other field code the query is rejected with an error naming the field.
• Parentheses group several values inside one field code: (025 035 042)[ic].
• Quotation marks hold a phrase together.
• There is no OR inside a single query, and no proximity operators. For OR, use set operations.

If a query will not parse, the error appears directly under the search box and names the problem — an unknown field code, an unterminated quote, an unclosed parenthesis, or a value the field does not accept.

Set Operations — where OR lives

Each search you run is kept as a numbered step. The Combine Steps panel joins them:

Operator	Result
AND	Marks in both steps
OR	Marks in either step
NOT	Marks in the first step, not the second

Switch on Expression mode to write it out: 1 AND 2, 1 NOT 3, (1 2) AND 3. Numbers inside parentheses are OR'd together.

This is how you build an examiner-style search: run several narrow steps, then combine them, rather than trying to express everything in one query.

Searches That Are Too Broad

Some patterns would force GleanMark to examine all 14 million marks, so they are stopped before they run — a single character next to a wildcard, for example, or a one-character whole-word search. The message tells you what to add: another character, or a class, owner, date or status filter. If you genuinely want to wait, use Run anyway.

TESS Search vs Power Search

They answer different questions.

• Power Search at /search is the AI-scored search. You type a name and it ranks what is most likely to matter.
• TESS Search is structured and literal. You state the criteria and it returns exactly what matches, with a step log you can audit and combine.

TESS Search is a secondary search mode, not a replacement for the main search.

What's Included in Each Plan

TESS Search requires Professional or Max. On Free and Starter the page shows an upgrade prompt instead of the search tool. All search fields, set operations, phonetic expansion, and the step log are included at both tiers.

Related Features

• Power Search — the AI-scored main search
• Knockout Search — likelihood-of-confusion review without query syntax