Frequently Asked Questions
What do I get for $149?
For $149, you can get a comprehensive 'yes' or 'no' answer on whether your trademark can be legally used or registered. This comes in the form of a professional risk analysis report that looks at exact matches as well as similar spellings, sounds, and translations from other languages that have been trademarked.
Your report tells you everything a lawyer would tell you and more, like:
- Who else is using your name or a similar name, so you don't get sued later!
- How you can protect your online brand by getting available domain names and social handles.
And you get this report in 60 seconds, not weeks.
If your report gets a 'Looks good', you’ll also receive a ready-to-file application that gives you all the information you need to successfully complete the process with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO).
If your first report says there's a risk your name won't pass ('It's risky'), you should choose a different name. We know this is disappointing news, but it's better to be safe than sorry when it comes to trademarks. We let you run any number of additional reports for other trademark options at a discounted price.
Why should I use Haloo?
Our platform makes it simple to do the hard parts of filing a trademark, like conducting a thorough search and writing the application correctly. What Haloo provides is comparable in quality to what would cost significantly more from a lawyer.
You save money because we let you do it yourself, but we show you how to do it right.
You get a simple, easy-to-understand answer to the legal question of whether or not you can use and own your brand.
And as a bonus, we give you everything you need to submit your guaranteed-compliant application to the government website.
Can you help me file my application, too?
Haloo saves you money by giving you everything you need to file a trademark on your own, but we know that some business owners would rather have help along the way. That's why we offer an optional filing service: for $49, one of our customer service reps will meet with you to make sure you're comfortable using the government's website and that you filled out your application correctly.
What’s the difference between a name, logo, and tagline?
A name trademark can be your company or brand name, or it can be the name of a product. It’s one or more words, simply typed out, without graphic elements.
A tagline—also known as a slogan—is a phrase or a combination of words that represent your brand’s value proposition. A tagline does not include graphic elements, either.
A logo trademark is a visual design, usually created by a graphic designer, that may or may not feature words. An important note about logos: your brand name might be written inside your logo or the design of your logo might simply be your brand name in a certain font. It can be hard to understand why a logo featuring the name or just the name in a certain font needs to be filed as a separate application to the name application. But to fully protect your brand, you must register both the name as plain text and the logo design as trademarks.
See below for an example of each.
Nike
Name example
Just Do It
Tagline example
Logo example
What happens if the report shows a high risk ('It's risky')? Do you offer refunds?
We do not offer refunds on trademark searches. However, we know how disappointing it is when an idea for a trademark doesn’t pass legal clearance, and we want you to be able to successfully register a trademark so you can grow your business.
So if the results of your first search on Haloo show that your trademark is not likely to be registered by the CIPO and that you cannot use it for your business, we’ll send you a discount code for your next search.
How long does the process take?
Running a Haloo search takes 60 seconds and filing your application with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office takes about an hour when you use the information provided in our ready-to-file application.
For context, working with a lawyer to do a manual trademark search would take days, sometimes even weeks. In addition, trademark applications that use our Application Builder avoid critical human errors made by lawyers, and they’re prioritized by CIPO because we format your information to be compliant and use the exact language the office requires.
Can’t I use other search tools to see if my brand is available?
Unfortunately, internet searches using Google, GoDaddy, or even the CIPO database itself do not give you an accurate picture of what can be legally protected, because they search for exact terms only.
Take the name Nirke, for example. Looks a lot like Nike, right? But if you search the CIPO database for Nirke, you’ll get no results - Nike won’t come up - which falsely suggests that it is available to trademark.
A Haloo search uses our AI tool to check for all possible conflicts, including similar spelling, sound-alikes, and translation variations, in order to give you the most accurate answer possible.
Consider how upsetting it would be if the brand name you chose was identical to another company's registered trademark or was even off by one letter. You could invest everything you own in your business only to have to defend yourself against an infringement lawsuit.
Is Haloo as accurate as a trademark lawyer?
Yes, if not more. Haloo was created by lawyers using custom-built AI to achieve lawyer-quality searches in a fraction of the time. In addition, one in every five lawyer-filed trademark applications fails, while our Application Builder guarantees success by removing human error.
How are government filing fees calculated?
The Canadian Intellectual Property Office charges fees to file your application based on the number of Product and Service classes in your application. Without getting too technical, all products and services fall into one of 45 unique government classes (also known as Nice Classes). So, if you file a trademark application for “prepared ice cream” (Class 30) and “retail store services featuring ice cream for consumption off the premises” (Class 35), you would have to pay government fees for two classes.