Nomina: Brand and Trademark Research for iPhone

by Bill French on 14/01/10 at 3:00 am

Bill French is an information architect specializing in Internet applications. He is also the co-founder of MyST Technology Partners and Senior Editor for iPhoneCTO.

The other day I was skiing, a particularly cold day so I was riding the gondola at Keystone. I was alone and thinking mostly about a new line of information products I’m researching that will extend Gist by providing preconfigured taxonomies of people and companies in specific industries. The snow was excellent that morning, but my mind kept wandering back to the task of identifying product name candidates.

For most of my career, I’ve spent a fair bit of time thinking about new products and services and what to call them; it’s in my blood, but I’m not that good at it. LapLink (circa 1985) was originally named FireFile (by me). Would you trust your files with any software with the word “fire” in it? Geeks usually aren’t good at marketing, but occasionally they get it right; Google is a good exception, QuickSite (mine) is another.

In the age of the Internet, you can’t create a product or a new brand or service without thinking about domain names. Nomina for iPhone

is a simple app that helps you explore brand and trademark names quickly and efficiently. You give it a name you’re thinking about and it scans all the standard domains ( such as .com, .net, .org, .biz, .tv) as well as the US Patent and Trade Office filings, and then it searches for common law instances of the name in Google, business directories, and the Library of Congress. In just a few seconds, you have a summary report indicating the likelihood that the name is unique.

Nomina also tracks the history of your searches allowing you to delete names that are taken and preserve those that are available candidates. If you’re performing searches on different projects or perhaps for clients, you can create groups to categorize the results.