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Trademark Check Log

Companion to "Trademark discipline."

One row per phrase, before design work starts. The sequence is phrase, check, design, upload. Never design first and check later. Tool: the USPTO trademark search at tmsearch.uspto.gov (free; TESS retired November 2023). Search the exact phrase in quotes. For each live record, open it and read two fields: the status, and the goods and services description. Control-F the detail page for "shirt" and "clothing."

Check log

Phrase	Date searched	Live records found?	Any live registration covering clothing / class 25?	Decision (clear / off limits)	Notes (record numbers, edge cases)

A phrase can be trademarked in apparel while completely open in other categories. The result count matters less than what the registration covers. The one question: is this phrase protected for clothing, class 25? Limits of the check: USPTO search does not catch unregistered common-law marks and covers the United States only.

Red zones (not worth the risk even when the search is clean)

Celebrity names and likenesses (athletes, actors, musicians, streamers)
Brands, teams, movies, games, franchises (Pokemon, Disney, Star Wars, NFL teams: all owned, all enforced)
Phrases from current pop culture (catchlines, memes built on someone's IP, song lyrics; lyrics carry copyright separately)
Borderline political and topical phrases (can carry registrations; marketplace content policies stack on top; Merch enforcement is algorithmic)

Tags and titles count as use

No tagging a shirt with a trademarked term to farm its search traffic (infringement with extra steps, and how the platform finds you)
Each phrase on this log was checked before any pixels moved, no exceptions for "obviously safe" phrases

What violation costs: no fixed public strike count; a rights-holder IP complaint can terminate a Merch account immediately with royalties withheld; repeated takedowns end Etsy and Redbubble accounts too. The catalog you spent a year building disappears with it.