Brandmity

Methodology & sources

How the clearance score actually works

Brandmity’s job is to be honest, not impressive. Here’s exactly what the score measures, where the data comes from, and where the tool’s limits are.

Scoring

A knockout screen, not a legal opinion

The clearance engine approximates the factors a USPTO examiner weighs for “likelihood of confusion”: appearance, sound and meaning overlap. It's deliberately conservative — it flags marks worth a closer look, it doesn't decide anything.

Exact match

We strip punctuation, casing and common suffixes to compare the “distinctive core” of two marks. If the cores match, that's an exact hit — the strongest possible signal.

Phonetic match

A soundex-style phonetic key catches marks that sound alike but are spelled differently (“Lyft” / “Lift”, “Katz” / “Cats”) — the kind of similarity a USPTO examiner listens for, not just reads for.

Containment

If one mark's core fully contains the other's (e.g. “Nimbus” inside “Nimbus Cloud”), that's flagged separately, since one name absorbing another is a common source of real confusion.

Edit-distance ratio

The remaining, dominant share of the score comes from a Levenshtein edit-distance ratio between the two cores — a graded measure of how many character-level changes separate them.

Live vs. dead status

Only marks that are currently registered or pending can raise your risk. Dead, cancelled or abandoned marks are shown for context — they generally can't block a new filing.

Class overlap

A close mark in an unrelated class matters less than one in your class (or an unclassified record, which we treat cautiously). Class overlap shifts ranking, not just the risk band.

These signals combine into a single 0–100 similarity score per candidate match. A search returns clear when no live mark clears the similarity threshold in an overlapping class, caution when live marks resemble your name but none are a strong, close match, and high risk when a live mark is effectively identical, or very similar in an overlapping class. Every result also states how many total records and live conflicts were found, so nothing is hidden behind the headline.

Data sources

Where the data comes from

Clearance searches run against public United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) trademark records. Brandmity is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by the USPTO.

Reference figures last verified 2026-07-07 — fees and timelines change; always confirm on the linked USPTO page before filing.

Our honesty contract

Real data, or an explicit failure

If a live USPTO data connection isn’t available, Brandmity never fabricates trademark records or pretends a mark is clear. The search either returns real, sourced records, clearly labeled sample data used only for demos and local development (with real marks, real owners and real public status — never invented), or an explicit “live search isn’t available right now” message. We do not guess.

Brandmity is an informational trademark-clearance tool, not a law firm, and does not provide legal advice. A clear result is not a guarantee of registrability — consult a licensed trademark attorney before filing.