Can I search the trademark registration database for free?

Actually, you can search the database of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (also known more succinctly as the USPTO) for free, so you definitely don't need to pay a dime to accomplish what you want.

Let me step you through how it works, though, because it's not the most obvious interface in the world!

First off, go to the USPTO site and click on the link "Search" under "Trademarks" on the left side. You'll see a somewhat poorly designed page that prominently features:

Click on "New User Form Search (Basic)" and you'll be logged into their database of over three million applied for, active, and dead trademarks. Here's how that looks:

Note that this is a pretty complex interface with lots of choices, but the default is usually good enough to get a basic idea of whether or not there are problems afoot with other trademarks. I'll simply type in the search term "Hot Times Hawaii" and click on Submit, to find that there's no trademark on file with this exactly phrase.

That's not sufficient, however. It's useful to also search for broader matches: let's look for just 'hot times' and see what comes up, for example:

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There are 28 matches to the search for "hot times", including some weird ones. The most important, though, is serial #78757651, "HOT TIMES". Note that the last column shows that it's a "LIVE" trademark, so it could be a conflict with your new business name (just as you can't have, say, "McDonald's Hawaii" as your business even though McDonald's technically doesn't own that trademark, you also might not be able to use "HOT TIMES HAWAII" if it could cause confusion with customers who wouldn't know if your business was related to HOT TIMES).

Click on the trademark and we'll find out more:

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Okay, it's a magazine about chili peppers and spicy foods. You're probably okay if you're talking about some sort of nightclub / party experience on the Islands: trademarks apply within business segments, not broadly across all possible businesses, so they'd have a hard time explaining why your Hot Times Hawaii business was confusing their chili magazine readers. :-)

If you scroll dow on the original page of matches, you'll see that there are a few more trademarks registered for "HOT TIMES", but they're dead. Since they're to do with an entertainment publication and doll clothes (!!) they're not a problem either.

Anyway, you can see the basic process of exploring the patent and trademark database from the US government. It's completely free, but please, don't misconstrue what I'm writing as any sort of legal advice. I'm reasonably knowledgeable about trademark and copyright issues, but I'm definitely not a lawyer, and this information should not be construed as legal counsel!