The History of T&T Thomson & Thomson: The World Leader in Trademark and Copyright Services It began with an idea. Back in, inventor-turned-patent agent Henry C. Thomson was frustrated by the limitations of the only source of registered trademark information that was available at the time, the Official Gazette, published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Henry considered the Official Gazette to be limiting and inadequate, and challenged himself to create a better system. Over the next nine years, he built a reliable, all-inclusive, cross-referenced file of U.S. registered trademarks. 1920s: The Birth of an Industry The system was complete by. The new system, based on files of index cards, arranged trademarks by industry, and allowed them to be searched by components (suffix, prefix and letter strings), and then phonetics. With this new "invention", Henry C. Thomson opened the Thomson Trademark Bureau in Boston in, and the intellectual property research industry was born. Upon Henry Thomson's death in, management of the Thomson Trademark Bureau was taken over by Henry's two sons, Arthur and Earl Thomson, who renamed the firm to Thomson & Thomson. 1940s and.: Growth and Expansion Having survived the Great Depression of the. on its combination of legal practice and search services, Thomson & Thomson moved into a period of growth in the., most notably following the passage of the Lanham Act by Congress in. The Lanham Act, along with increased post-war economic activity, generated a heavier demand for trademark searches. In, Thomson & Thomson expanded its staff to include Francis W. Campbell of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and added Arthur Thomson's son, Warren Thomson, in. Both men later became partners in the firm. 1960s and.: Technological Innovation By the., the original system, using index cards to catalogue registered trademarks, was filled to capacity. An improved and more efficient system of conducting trademark searches was clearly needed. The solution was found in technology, and during the. and., improved and automated systems for trademark searching were put in place. 1980s and.: New Technology and New Alliances Building on the technological advances of the., the. brought enhancements to the Thomson & Thomson product line, such as protective "watching" services to complement the company's trademark search services, and the introduction of TRADEMARKSCAN� databases, the first online resource for the preliminary searching of trademarks. The. were also a time of new alliances: 1982: Thomson & Thomson becomes part of The Thomson Corporation. 1986: Thomson & Thomson partners with IP search firm Compu-Mark of Belgium. 1988: Thomson & Thomson adds copyright and title services, with the acquisition of Copyright Research Group from a Washington, D.C. law firm. 1995: Thomson & Thomson partners with Brandy International, an IP search firm in Japan, in order to meet growing demand for international trademark research. 1995: Thomson & Thomson introduces SAEGIS™, a revolutionary online service making it possible to screen and manage trademarks online. Today... And Tomorrow Thomson & Thomson is committed to providing new solutions to meet and exceed the needs of intellectual property professionals. With a continual reinvestment in new technologies and a commitment to remain at the forefront of our clients' research needs, it is our mission to lead the field, today and in the years to come.