Canadian Trademarks Database Tutorial - Lesson 2: Search Basics

The Canadian Trademarks Database search system is a flexible, yet powerful tool that can be used in many ways to meet your particular requirements. You can perform simple searches or you can perform very complex searches. In this section we will cover the following:


  1. From the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) home page, click “Search trademarks” under the “I want to…” section to be directed to the Canadian Trade-marks Database.
  2. Under ‘Search Criteria’, click the drop-down menu to “Select a search field”. The default option is “All”. For more assistance, go to Lesson 3: Refining Searches .
  3. Enter the desired term(s) under the “search criteria” text field.
  4. You may also choose to apply other options to generate specific results. To learn more, go to Lesson 4: Additional Search Options .
  5. Once completed, click “Search” to view your results. You may choose to click “Clear” to restart.

Go to the Canadian Trade-marks Database’s Search  page.

Using wildcards to enhance searches

Wildcards are characters that the search engine recognizes. They add flexibility to your searches:

  • * Use an asterisk to replace a sequence of characters (e.g., to search for pharmacy and pharmaceutical, use "pharm*").
  • ? Use a question mark to replace a single character (e.g., "organi?ation" will match different spellings: "organization" or "organisation").
  • Wildcards can be used in multiple search terms (e.g., Canad*, Gov*).
  • Wildcards can also be used in front of the search term (e.g., "*national" will match different terms such as "national" and "international").

For more detailed information on wildcards, see "Truncation and wildcard characters " section of the Database’s Assistance file.