Most any entrepreneurial person has searched for a trademark on the USPTO.gov website. Their search feature is straight forward, if somewhat innefficient and inflexible. It’s as old-school as it gets.

What if we redesigned the search feature to take advantage of the latest faceted search technology? Let’s explore.

Trademark Search Before

The biggest problem with the USPTO’s trademark search is a lack of continuity and integration across it’s different features. There are five distinct screens that cover the breadth of their search capabilities. This is functional but not optimal. Search technology has come a long way in the last decade.

Below we can see the current trademark search screens:

Search Landing Page

USPTO Before 1

USPTO Before 2

Search Results

USPTO Before 3

Search by Dates

USPTO Before 4

USPTO Before 5

Trademark Search After

The screens above could be reimagined through the lens of a more modern search interface, condensing a heap of features onto a single page. We end up with:

  • Sorting
  • Date Filtering
  • Suggested Spelling
  • Advanced options accessible at deeper levels of the interface

USPTO Search Redesign

Facets

Facets are another way of filtering data by type.

USPTO Search Redesign

Sorting

Each column should be able to sort the data from ascending to decending, or vice versa. This function should be activated by clicking the column name.

USPTO Search Redesign

Date Filtering

Allow me to add a date filter as part of my search query.

USPTO Search Redesign

Suggested Spelling

It’s always nice to offer suggested spelling options. All major search platforms can be configured to support this.

USPTO Search Redesign

Advanced options at deeper levels of the interface

Many times it’s advantageous to nest advanced interface options at deeper levels. It’s less work to click and open an envelope thank it is to click through to a new page. We could also store the visitor’s preference with a simple cookie so they don’t have to keep opening the advanced envelope each visit to our site.

USPTO Search Redesign

Let the USPTO know what you think here on twitter.

*USPTO recently updated their search pages, and some of these images are corresponding to the older version. Please use their new URL linked above.