A name only has value if it can be commercially exploited. To be exploited, it must be available, that is, it should not be too similar to any existing trademarks in the field and the countries where it is going to be exploited. Hence the necessity of checking for similarities with live trademarks in the relevant business sector. 

Until now, the Quensis automatic filter system made it possible to detect all similarities within one letter for a given name, against a database of registered trademarks in pre-selected classes and countries. Quensis has just added a new, even more powerful tool: Similar 2, which detects similarities within two letters.

Just think: There are 125 combinations within one letter for a five-letter word (25 x 5), but 15,625 combinations within two letters (125 x 125). As for performing thousands of verifications for several hundred names against a database of tens of thousands of registered trademarks… Guy, our brilliant computer specialist, will spare us this mathematical mind-bender. It’s downright incalculable, except by the Quensis tool. 

This tool has just been successfully tested in researching names for the French pharmaceutical industry. The criteria used by Afssaps (France’s health products safety agency) are stricter than those of trademark law. 

And if we can do it for the pharmaceutical industry, just think what we can do in other, less restrictive industries…