Can't find trademark? Is it really TM'd? Help

[ds1domains]

Hello. I have a site that I bought that I am trying to sell to an end user. The user gave me a very low ball offer, saying the name is a Trademark Term of his company. I cant find it ANYWHERE.. looked all over the internet and even the government trademark search site.. THe user doesnt even have the TM logo on his page. Any other place to check?? What would you do in this situation. Its a very good name.
thx

 

[npcomplete]

Hello. I have a site that I bought that I am trying to sell to an end user. The user gave me a very low ball offer, saying the name is a Trademark Term of his company. I cant find it ANYWHERE.. looked all over the internet and even the government trademark search site.. THe user doesnt even have the TM logo on his page. Any other place to check?? What would you do in this situation. Its a very good name.
thx

Not a lot to say without more information. A couple of comments:

1.) "Which Government?"

2.) user is a moron for not putting the TM next to the phrase/word/image for which they are claiming a trademark.

I will make a wild guess, and assume you are talking about a USPTO mark. Searching USPTO is an art, and the advanced search capability is great, but you need to know the syntax for using it correctly... and that syntax is not common (i.e., compared to "regular expression" searches). Furthermore, a registration for a mark is not required to get legal protection (look up common law trademark).

Here are some other places to look:

Australia:
http://pericles.ipaustralia.gov.au/atmoss/falcon.application_start

Brazil:
http://pesquisa.inpi.gov.br/MarcaPatente/jsp/servimg/servimg.jsp?BasePesquisa=Marcas

Canada:
http://www.cipo.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cipointernet-internetopic.nsf/eng/Home

France: (fee, but you can get some free info)
http://www.icimarques.com/

Germany:
https://dpinfo.dpma.de/protect/mar.html

India:
http://www.patentoffice.nic.in/

New Zealand; (I think there is a firefox bug on this site)
http://www.iponz.govt.nz/cms/trade-marks/banner_template/IPTM

Philippines: (they changed their URL a few weeks ago)
http://www.ipophil.gov.ph/tmsearch2/

UK:
http://www.ipo.gov.uk/tm.htm

USA State Trademarks:
http://martinwallace.net/ptdla/statetm_main.html

WIPO:
http://www.wipo.int/romarin/

There are *lots* of others, and for some reason I can't bring up Spain right now, but you get the idea.

Oh... and WELCOME TO NAMEPROS!!! This was your first post!