The project team searched the government website, https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/search/search-information, for trademark information in the United States. The team searched for gardening robots which yielded many results, but none of which were relevant. The majority of the results were trademarks for handheld gardening machines/tools and informational websites for gardeners.
When searching for the name “Grow”, the project team found a company with the trademark Grow 1827. Due to the similarity between the company and the team’s project name, the project team will have to modify the name to avoid confusion and possible infringement issues.
Website for the existing Grow 1827 Trademark:
The project team will take steps to avoid copyright issues, such as using code only from free and open sources. The project team should protect their work by getting a copyright for the robot’s code the team will create.
The project team used the following website to search for existing patents: https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/static/pages/ppubsbasic.html
The team found several related products, such as robot lawnmowers and agricultural robots. The team’s robot will use different methods to achieve different functionality, so the robot will not pose any infringement issues with patents. See existing patents below.
US-11950534-B1
“A solar powered robotic lawnmower includes a sound suppression means and a seed spreading means. The lawnmower includes a Bluetooth speaker on the device to serve as a sound suppression means. A user may play their desired audio media through the Bluetooth speaker in order to drown out the sound produced when mowing the grass. Additionally, the lawnmower includes a chute to serve as a seed spreading means. In one embodiment, the chute is located at the side of the device and serves to disperse seeds as the device mows a user's lawn. The lawnmower further features blades on a bottom end of the device to facilitate the cutting of a lawn as the device travels. A remote control is also included to allow a user to remotely control the device.”
US-20240210901-A1
“A smart lawnmower and system and method for use of the same are disclosed. In one embodiment of the smart lawnmower, in a real world-to-simulated world (“real-to-sim”) training phase, the smart lawnmower constructs a simulated environment corresponding to a mowing-relevant portion of a real-world environment relative to semantic information, which may include received location signalization at an antenna In a simulated world-to-real world (“sim-to-real”) mowing phase, a mowing policy is applied to control the cutting subsystem and the drive subsystem in response to the semantic information, which may include the location signalization. In each of the real-to-sim training phase and the sim-to-real mowing phase, the smart lawnmower may provide a user interface including the simulated environment. Further, in the sim-to-real mowing phase, the smart lawnmower may synchronize the real world and the simulated world.”
US-12105511-B2
“The invention relates, inter alia, to a method for operating an autonomous agricultural work machine. A first current position of the agricultural work machine is determined by means of a first position-determining device. A second current position of the agricultural work machine is determined by means of a second position-determining device. A difference value which relates to a difference between the first current position and the second current position is determined. The work machine is operated autonomously as a function of the determined difference value.”