What is the company's full name?

Often, it is not because there is no information available on the company that you cannot find any trace of it. More than likely, there is merely some uncertainty about the correct spelling or form of the name under which the organization is doing business.

For example, you may run into problems when searching for company names that exist as acronyms or that include any of the following: and, &, Co., Inc., Ltd., etc. It is also possible that the company name is a foreign one that has been anglicized in a less than intuitive way.

Alternatively, you may have to figure out which company is behind a particular website, patent, trademark, or brandname because the name familiar to you may not be the company's official business name. The following resources will help you do some of the "detective work" that may be required of you.

Brands and Their Companies / Companies and Their Brands
(*R-T223 .V4A25 / *R-T223 .V4A253 or
Gale Business Resources (EIC)
Useful if you know the name of a product the company is responsible for but are not sure of the company's exact name. Covers trade names (product name, trademark, brand names, etc.) and companies (alphabetically arranged separately) which either manufacture products, distribute them (including import/export), or market them.

Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS)
http://www.uspto.gov/web/menu/tm.html
The US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) now offers Web access to bibliographic and full-text databases. Great for tracking companies whose product or service is trademarked and known to you but whose official company name escapes you. The registered trademark is not necessarily the name that the company uses to "do business", particularly if the company has more than one product.

WHOIS database
http://www.whois.org/
This site is useful for obtaining information about or related to a domain name registration record. A domain name is a way to identify and locate computers and resources connected to the Internet. No two organizations can have the same domain name, so if the business has a website registered, you will uncover the company responsible for it.