California Code of Regulations
Title 2 - Administration
Division 7 - Secretary of State
Chapter 13 - Uniform Commercial Code
Article 5 - Information Request and Search Response
Section 22601.4 - Rules Applied to Search Requests

(a) There is no limit to the number of matches that may be returned in response to the search criteria.

(b) No distinction is made between upper and lower case letters.

(c) Punctuation marks and accents are disregarded.

(d) Words and abbreviations at the end of a name that indicate the existence or nature of an organization are disregarded.

(e) The word "the" at the beginning of the search criteria is disregarded.

(f) All spaces are disregarded.

(g) For first personal name and additional name(s)/initial(s) of individual names, initials are treated as the logical equivalent of all names that begin with such initials, and first personal name and no additional name(s)/initial(s) is equated with all additional name(s)/initial(s). For example, a search request for "John A. Smith" would cause the search to retrieve all filings against all individual debtors with "John" or the initial "J" as the first personal name, "Smith" as the surname, and with the initial "A" or any name beginning with "A" in the additional name(s)/initial(s) field. If the search request were for "John Smith" (first personal name and surnames with no designation in the additional name(s)/initial(s) field), the search would retrieve all filings against individual debtors with "John" or the initial J as the first personal name, "Smith" as the surname and with any name or initial or no name or initial in the additional name(s)/initial(s) field.

(h) After using the preceding rules to modify the name to be searched, the search will reveal only names of debtors that are contained in unlapsed and lapsed financing statements and exactly match the names requested, as modified.