Sources, currency and limits
What each search looks at, how current it is, and what it cannot see.
Trademark
Searched
USPTO federal trademark application and registration records (USPTO bulk data), matched by spelling and by sound.
Not searched
State registrations, common-law use, business and domain names, foreign registrations, logo similarity.
Patent
Searched
US patents 1976 to present; published US patent applications (USPTO Open Data Portal); foreign and PCT documents through the European Patent Office; scholarly literature (titles and abstracts).
Not searched
Patent offices not reachable through the EPO; products, websites and public use outside these sources; unpublished applications.
Design
Searched
US design patents 1976 to present, with your drawings visually compared to design patent drawings of all years for the closest candidates.
Not searched
Foreign designs (EUIPO, Hague/WIPO, Japan, Korea, China); products not in patent records; look-alikes filed under unrelated titles and classes.
Beer Search: name check
Searched
USPTO federal trademark records (classes 32 and 33 weighted first). The federal beer label registry (TTB COLA public registry) for brand and fanciful names on approved malt beverage labels. Oregon state trademark register. OpenBreweryDB (whether a brewery is listed; informational only). A domain check (DNS and RDAP; it never says a domain is available) and a web check. Data current through: COLA is refreshed weekly (the initial backfill is still completing); Oregon monthly; OpenBreweryDB quarterly; each report states the actual date.
Not searched
COLA names cover federally approved labels only, not pending or refused ones. Not searched: New York and Ohio brand registers (state requirement checklists are provided for those states), all other state brand registers, unregistered (common-law) use, local or draft-only brands, and beer rating sites. A brand missing from a register does not mean it is free to use.
Beer Search: label check
Searched
The text read from your label images, compared with the mandatory items in the federal malt beverage labeling rules (27 CFR Part 7) and the government health warning wording (27 CFR Part 16).
Not searched
Type size, contrast and legibility, misleading-claim judgments, formula or ingredient approval. Anything unreadable in your photos is marked "cannot assess". Not a TTB label approval.
Beer Search: states
Searched
Requirements checklist: general information from the published guidance of state alcohol agencies, with the source and the date it was last checked. Detailed summaries for CA, TX, NY, PA, OH, FL, IL, MI, WA, MA, CO and NC; other states get a pointer to the state agency.
Not searched
State requirements change and may differ from what is shown. This is not state-by-state approval and not legal advice. Confirm with the agency or a licensed attorney.
Data currency
Beer Search sources are refreshed on their own schedules (COLA weekly, Oregon monthly, OpenBreweryDB quarterly; USPTO as described above). Each Beer Search report states, for every register, the date its data is current through and its limits.
Source data is loaded from the offices' published releases, so very recent filings may not be included yet. Every report states the date its data is current through in its Search Scope and Limitations section.
How we handle citations
References come only from search results, never from the AI model's memory, and are checked against the source records. Similarity scores are ranking aids, not legal findings. Web findings, where included, are labelled unverified.
Processors
Reports are generated with AI and search services, including Anthropic (language model) and Voyage AI (relevance ranking of patent abstracts). Beer Search label images are read by Anthropic models and the image files are deleted after the report. The Privacy Policy lists all processors.
Primoris reports are automated screening reports. They are not legal advice and not an attorney opinion, and no attorney-client relationship is created. A gap in the results does not prove that nothing exists. Talk to a registered patent or trademark attorney before filing or relying on a report.