How to know a name is free before you spend on identity
Searching the name on Google and seeing whether the .com is free is what everyone does. It is also what lets through the problems that cost money later.
The natural order is the wrong one: first we fall for the name, then we commission the identity, and only at the end — if at all — do we check. Checking costs little and takes a day; redoing an identity does not.
1. Domains, with an authoritative answer
A site that does not load does not mean the domain is free. Extensions with RDAP — .com, .net, .org, .fr among others — give an authoritative registry answer: available or taken, no interpretation. Others, such as .es, .de or .eu, offer no public automated lookup, so all you can state is whether they resolve. A registered but unconfigured domain does not resolve: it looks free and is not. It is worth knowing which method was used for each one.
2. Trade marks, and in which classes
This is where the money is. Your name existing as a mark does not close it: protection is limited to the registered classes and to similar goods or services. What matters is whether it exists in your classes, with effect in the territory where you sell. An EU mark weighs on Spain; a Chilean one does not.
3. The phonetic neighbourhood
The check almost nobody runs, and the one that produces the most surprises. Infringement does not require an identical name: close enough to confuse the public over similar goods or services is enough. That means searching the variants too: a vowel swapped, a voiced consonant for its voiceless pair, a syllable more or less. Those marks do not show up when you search the name as written, and they are exactly the ones that trigger an opposition.
4. The root, not just the word
Searching “markfindings” does not find “markfind”. It pays to search the morphological root of the name — the word without its ending — because that is where the direct competition's marks appear.
5. Who owns the name in search
It confers no rights, but it says a lot. If typing your name already suggests a company, a product or a controversy, you will be competing with that on every brand search for years. And if it suggests nothing, you have the expression to yourself, which is rare today.
6. How it reads abroad
If you sell or will sell outside your country, check which reading rules of each language affect your name and whether it sits one step from a word you do not want. You do not need a study with native speakers to catch the obvious accidents; you need to look before.
And after that
With the six checks done, you know what is out there. What follows — whether the name is registrable, whether there is a likelihood of confusion — is a professional judgement signed by a lawyer or a trade mark attorney. The two things are different and worth keeping apart: facts are checked, conclusions are signed.