If you’re planning EU trademark registration, the search step is where most problems (and expensive rebrands) are either prevented or invited. In the EU, this matters even more because the EU trademark system is opposition-driven: the EUIPO does not refuse your application just because an earlier mark exists. Instead, owners of earlier rights can oppose after publication.

A proper European Union trademark search is not just “did I find the exact name.” It’s “could a brand owner plausibly argue confusion” based on how marks look, sound, and what they mean, across overlapping goods/services.

Below is a practical process you can follow.

Step 1: Define what you’re actually searching

Write down:

• The mark exactly as you plan to use it (word mark vs logo vs both).
• Variations you might use in real life: spacing, hyphens, singular/plural, spelling variants, abbreviations.
• How people will pronounce it (especially if it’s invented, foreign, or has multiple possible pronunciations).

This sounds basic, but most “we searched and it looked clear” situations fall apart here.

Step 2: Lock your goods/services before you search deeply

Trade mark risk is always tied to what you sell.

Do a first-pass list of your goods/services and the Nice classes you’ll likely file in. Then add the “adjacent” items you might expand into in the next 12–24 months (because the similar marks you ignore today often show up again when you scale).

If you don’t do this, you’ll either miss conflicts or waste time analyzing irrelevant ones.

Step 3: Start with TMview for broad coverage

Use TMview for your initial sweep. It’s a free tool that lets you search trade marks from many participating offices (including EUIPO and EU national offices).

In TMview:

1. Search the exact mark in quotation marks (exact phrase).
2. Search the main element without quotes (broader results).
3. Search obvious variations (spacing, hyphens, plural).
4. Filter by:
   • Status (don’t ignore “applied for”)
   • Territories (EU + key countries you care about)
   • Classes (start with yours, then expand to adjacent classes)

This gives you the “landscape” quickly.

Step 4: Use EUIPO eSearch for EU-specific details

Then switch to EUIPO’s eSearch (EUIPO database interface). It’s where you’ll confirm the details that matter: the exact goods/services wording, filing dates, status history, owners, and representatives.

For each concerning result, open the record and check:

• Is it a word mark or figurative mark?
• What exactly is protected (goods/services text, not just the class number)?
• Is it still active (or expired/withdrawn)?
• Who owns it (a competitor vs an unrelated company in a different industry)?

Step 5: Expand beyond “identical” (this is the real search)

Most refusals/oppositions don’t come from exact matches. They come from similarity.

Run searches for:

• The beginning of the mark (first 3–6 letters)
• The dominant word element (if your mark has two words)
• Common misspellings and phonetic equivalents
• Translations or meaning-based equivalents if your mark is a dictionary word

EU trade mark comparison looks at visual, aural (phonetic), and conceptual similarity.
So if your mark is likely to be spoken (podcasts, radio, word-of-mouth), don’t over-focus on spelling differences.

Step 6: If you have a logo, search the figurative angle too

A logo search is where DIY searches get thin.

At minimum:

• Search the word element of the logo as if it were a word mark (because that’s often the dominant part).
• If the logo has a strong icon element (animal, star, leaf, etc.), you should also do a figurative-focused review. Public tools can help, but logo similarity is harder to assess quickly without experience.

If your brand will live on packaging, Amazon thumbnails, or app icons, treat logo similarity as a serious risk category.

Step 7: Assess risk like an examiner or opponent would

For each “close” mark, ask:

• Are the goods/services identical, similar, or unrelated?
• Would the average customer think the brands are connected?
• Is the shared element distinctive, or is it weak/common in your industry?

In EU practice, the overall impression matters (not a side-by-side letter comparison).

Create three buckets:

• Low risk: clearly different and/or unrelated goods/services
• Medium risk: some overlap or arguable similarity
• High risk: same market + similar look/sound/meaning

Step 8: Document what you did (you’ll thank yourself later)

Save links or PDFs of the key records you reviewed and note why you concluded low/medium/high risk. If you proceed to EU trademark registration, this becomes your internal “why we chose this name” file.

Step 9: Know when a professional search is justified

If the mark is important (core brand, high marketing spend, multiple countries), public searching is often not enough.

A professional European Union trademark search uses stronger matching logic and broader datasets, and it’s designed to catch conflicts that don’t show up with obvious keyword searching. TMview and eSearch are excellent starting points, but they are not a substitute for a real clearance strategy.

At Trademark Angel, we typically run comprehensive searches using professional software (Corsearch) and then give a practical risk assessment you can make a business decision with.