WIPO Launches New On-line Tool to Facilitate Brand Searches

Geneva, March 8, 2011
PR/2011/681

A new on-line tool launched by WIPO on March 8, 2011, will make it easier to search over 640,000 records relating to internationally protected trademarks, appellations of origin and armorial bearings, flags and other state emblems as well as the names, abbreviations and emblems of intergovernmental organizations. The Global Brand Database allows free of charge, simultaneous brand-related searches across multiple collections.

“The Global Brand Database is a centralized search facility which will greatly facilitate searching hundreds of thousands of records containing brand-related information,” said WIPO Director General Francis Gurry. “This is an important part of WIPO’s efforts to facilitate access to such valuable assets and reflects the Organization’s commitment to narrowing the global knowledge gap by improving access to and use of IP information.” Mr. Gurry said he expected national collections to be added to this database in the future.

At present, the Global Brand Database search interface allows users to access three WIPO databases –  international trademarks registered under the Madrid system for the international registration of marks; appellations of origin registered under the Lisbon system for the international registration of appellations of origin; and armorial bearings, flags and other state emblems as well as the names, abbreviations and emblems of intergovernmental organizations protected under Article 6ter of the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property – by means of one simple, user-friendly screen.

The Global Brand Database builds on existing search resources related to brands by providing a one-stop shop for searching multiple sources. A novelty is the addition of an advanced function that allows searching for fuzzy and phonetic terms.

The service will be integrated into WIPO GOLD, which provides quick and easy on-line access to a broad collection of searchable IP data and tools relating to, for example, technology, brands, designs, statistics, WIPO standards, and international classification systems.