Trade Mark Checker simplifies IP for business

Project summary

Trade Mark Checker, known as TM Checker, was developed in response to findings from a 2021 intellectual property enterprise growth study.

The study found that a substantial number of small businesses were:

• often unaware of the need for trade mark protection, resulting in blind adoption of brands
• hesitant or lacked confidence to undertake the trade mark filing process due to perceived barriers, including complexity and expense
• often not recognising risks, leading to late engagement or expensive remediation.

TM Checker is a free trade mark availability check designed to lower the bar of entry for small to medium businesses by simplifying the learning process of a complex IP system. The tool allows customers to check the potential registrability of their trademarks and then proceed through the application process.

TM Checker guides customers through a step-by-step process. It leverages AI-powered search tools to identify potential issues. This includes similarity and distinctiveness, the most common reasons for rejection.

An individual using TM Checker on the IP Australia website.
Image: IP Australia

How AI contributes to the project

TM Checker performs AI-integrated steps, including:

• image pre-processing (neural networks and computer vision models to perform text detection, upscaling, inpainting and text removal)
• object detection through deep learning models
• a re-trained vision transformer for image evaluation against IP Australia’s unique criteria
• natural language processing for text-based evaluation.

TM Checker was initially developed with a vendor partner but has since moved to complete in-house development. It provides IP Australia with an excellent opportunity to develop, test and evaluate the large number of AI models available for use in government.

IP Australia has tested many AI models against its specific needs and is now evaluating the opportunities of large language models to achieve further efficiencies.

Outcomes and next steps

From May 2022 to July 2025, more than 26,000 business applications used TM Checker to undertake approximately 760,000 trade mark checks.

IP Australia’s TM Checker customer survey in March 2025 returned an 87% customer satisfaction rate with the service.

Work is ongoing to improve TM Checker accuracy and increase the chances that similarity and distinctiveness issues are surfaced. This gives customers access to high-quality information and helps improve decision-making when choosing to register their IP.

TM Checker is available to use as a standalone service through IP Australia’s website, or as part of the TM Headstart application process, which allows applicants to gain early feedback on their proposed trade mark before formally filing for one.

Find out more

IP Australia (n.d.) TM Checker, IP Australia website, accessed 25 July 2025.

IP Australia (2021) IP rights and enterprise growth, IP Australia website, accessed 5 August 2025.