Our weekly hack for those in the field doing the work & digging up critical intel.
The ability to uncover information on the internet is the primary skill of an online investigator. There are hundreds of thousands of surface, deep, and dark websites, but which are most pertinent to your unique case? Do you know how to utilize Google to its full potential? With new social media platforms coming online at a rapid pace, capturing leads and evidence in social media networks is more complex than ever. Do you know the latest tools of the trade?
Hg’s OSINT Tips of the week provides you with the latest intel how to be most effective in our tradecraft. We are always looking for new tools, so don’t hesitate to let us know if you have one you’d like reviewed in a future post!
Enjoy!
This week, our Timely Tips overview two resources for Trademark and Intellectual Property searches. These platforms can be key for Trademark Investigations activity—uncovering vast amounts of valuable intelligence. Come on, it’s time to dig in.
Trademark Investigations: Trademarkia
Trademarkia.com hails to be the largest online visual trademark search engine, providing free access to over 7 million trademarked slogans, names, logos. In addition to providing access for search purposes, Trademarkia.com has assisted in registering trademarked content in 88 countries since 2009. Of note, its search algorithm accommodates wild card search. You can look up a logo by entering the name of the company or by the item name (such as “tree”). You can also search to determine whether a logo is dead (inactive) or live (active). Trademarkia is regularly updated to provide accurate information on trademark registrations.
Trademark Investigations: World Intellectual Property Office
The mothership of all intellectual property searches is the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) Located in Switzerland, with global offices in Brazil, China, Moscow, Japan, Singapore, and New York, IPO manages the world of international patents, trademark, and copyright. It’s a good site for finding out who owns what. Services such as Patentscope can often create leads in multinational property ownership. Searching on cyber-genius and friend, WILLIAM ROBERTS CHESWICK offered up 40 patents associated with his name in the United States. To set up an alert on an IP item, WIPO offers an RSS alert from your searches.
Have an OSINT tip for us? Contact us, and we will consider reviewing it in future posts!
Like what you’re reading? Check out Hg’s monthly webinars!
Throughout the year, Hetherington Group offers monthly live webinars on current investigative tactics involving social networks, search engines, due diligence, the dark web, and other related topics. Participants should have some basic experience of the topic, as all programs are offered at an intermediate level, unless otherwise noted.
