Trademark Laws are contained in the United States Code (U.S.C.) Title 15, Chapter 22. For more information on researching U.S. statutory law, see Georgetown Law Library's Statutes Research Guide or the Statutory Research Tutorial. The U.S. Primary Sources research guide provides a list of locations for statutes, case law, and regulations.
Regulations on trademark law are promulgated by United States Patent and Trademark Office (which also administers the trademark system) and codified in Title 37, Chapter 1 of the Code of Federal Regulations. For more on administrative legal research, generally, refer to our Administrative Law Research Guide or Administrative Law Tutorial. The U.S. Primary Sources research guide provides a list of locations for statutes, case law, and regulations.
For information on researching case law, see Georgetown Law Library's Case Law Research Guide or the Case Law Research Tutorial. The U.S. Primary Sources research guide provides a list of locations for statutes, case law, and regulations.
The USPTO Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) handles appeals involving applications to register marks, appeals from expungement or reexamination proceedings involving registrations, and trial cases of various types involving applications or registrations.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), an agency of the United States Department of Commerce, is the federal agency in charge of granting patents, registering trademarks, and providing patent and trademark information.
There are a number of valuable resources available on their website for free; some key links are below.
Use our state research guides to learn more about researching the laws of individual states.
Fifty-state surveys track a single topic across the statutes (& sometimes regulations) of all 50 states. They usually take the form of a state-by-state table or chart containing the citations to the laws on the given topic in each state, but generally contain little or no analysis. A 50-State Survey will not be available for every/all topics, but, if there is one, it can serve as a valuable starting point when conducting multi-jurisdictional research on a topic.
Check each of the below sources to see if there is a 50-state-survey already compiled for your topic. Be sure also to identify when a compiled survey was completed and always update the information.
Web: Note that you can sometimes find multi-state surveys or multi-state issue-trackers online, such as on the websites of research centers, professional associations, non-governmental organizations and private firms that focus on particular areas of the law, e.g., Plaintiff's Medical Care and Treatment—Discovery and Evidentiary Issues by the American Bar Association; Legal Innovation Regulatory Survey (2020) by the American Bar Association; 50-State Surveys by Butler Snow LLP; 50-State Surveys / Charts by the American Financial Services Association, etc. In general, to locate compiled reports by non-profit groups using a web search like Google or Duck Duck Go, try searching for: site:.org "state survey" [keyword(s)].
Texts & Treatises: Nationally-scoped treatises on a topic often include state-by-state treatments that will include citations to equivalent laws in each state (e.g. they may have sections or chapters on each state, state-by-state comparison tables, or information in their appendices that describe or reference the laws in each state). Our topically-organized Treatise Finders, while not comprehensive, are a great place to begin. Beyond this, check both Lexis and Westlaw's collections for relevant national treatises, as each platform has unique titles not available in the other. Books and reports on a topic across multiple jurisdictions may also be available in our library's print or digital collection; to search for these, perform a search in the Library Catalog using the term "fifty-state," "state-by-state" or "50-state."
ALRs: American Law Reports (ALRs) track a single, narrow legal issue across all U.S. jurisdictions. While there is not one on every topic, when there is one on-point you will find that they include both substantive analysis and useful research tools (such as a Table of Laws with primary authorities from every relevant jurisdiction as well as cross-references to other secondary sources and research tools). ALRs are available on both Westlaw and Lexis.
Journals: Occasionally, a multi-jurisdictional survey may be published in law reviews. In most instances, the title of the article will contain the phrase "50 state survey" or "state survey." For more on finding articles using article indices and full-text databases, consult our Articles Research Guide. Multi-state legislative reports might also be published on SSRN, which is freely available online.
These relatively recent tools to the legal research market allow you to construct custom state law comparisons; however, so far, their usefulness can can be limited (e.g. to select pre-populated topics), and they may not be comprehensive. It is usually best to supplement them with your own research in order to address possible gaps.