Hearthmark is Alltrista? (Trademark searches)

Last year I wrote a post in sun tea jars that mentioned the company Hearthmark of Muncie IN as the vendor of these jars. (Hearthmark was also mentioned as putting out the Golden Harvest line of glass canning products.)

Someone found that note in my weblog, and wrote asking if I'd ever found a phone number or an address. Doing simple web searches and even yellow and white pages searches turned up nothing, though I did find a reference to Hearthmark with a partial address of "HEARTHMARK CORP/345 S HIGH POBox2729 , MUNCIE/Indiana.

On a whim, I decided to see if I could do a trademark search for "Golden Harvest" or "Hearthmark." Bingo - I found a page suggesting that Hearthmark was now Alltrista. The street address matched what I had for Hearthmark, so this must be the one. It's not clear if Hearthmark changed names, or was bought, but there is an Alltrista web site that identifies it as part of the Jarden Corporation.

The most useful thing I came across is the US Patent Search database. It lets you search on the trademark name, owner name, and tells you something about whether the trademark is classed as "live" or "dead." And in this case, it looks like a useful technique for tracking down old brands.