Should I Register The Name Of My Product As A Business Or The Company

The name of your company may exist your most of import business asset—it tells people who y'all are and what you do.

Your business organization proper name is i of your company's most valuable assets. It's a symbol for your reputation, and it's how yous're known to the outside world. If a competitor starts using your name, you're non likely to be happy about it.

Just what if you trademark your business proper name? Volition that forbid other businesses from using it?

The answer is that a registered trademark gives you the exclusive correct to use your business concern proper name nationwide in connexion with the goods and services you've identified in your registration, and allows you to enforce your trademark past filing a lawsuit in federal court. Those are strong protections, but information technology will be up to you to monitor unauthorized uses of your name and take steps to cease them.

Whether you should annals a trademark for your business name depends on your business'southward geographic scope, the type of name you have, and whether you have the fourth dimension and coin to file a trademark application.

What Is a Trademark?

A trademark identifies the source of appurtenances or services. Business names, production names, logos and labels tin can all be trademarks. You acquire a trademark by using your mark in commerce—in other words, using information technology when you behave your business organisation. For additional protection, you can register a trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

Advantages of Trademarking a Business organization Name

If you use your trademark but don't register it with the USPTO, you have common law trademark protection. You may be able to cease other people from using your mark, but merely in your firsthand geographic surface area. That may exist practiced plenty for a small local business concern, only may not be much help if you lot have an Net-based business organisation with nationwide telescopic.

If you register a trademark, you proceeds several advantages:

You'll take nationwide trademark protection.
Your trademark ownership becomes office of the USPTO'south database, creating a public tape of your ownership and the date you began using the trademark.
People who conduct a trademark search will see your trademark and may be less likely to utilise information technology.
You can file a lawsuit in federal courtroom to enforce your trademark.
Registration creates a legal presumption that you own the trademark and can use information technology for the goods and services listed in your trademark application. This is helpful if you ever demand to sue someone to enforce your trademark.
U.Due south. registration may allow you to annals your trademark in other countries.
Registration gives y'all the right to use the registered trademark symbol, ®.

The numerous advantages of trademark registration have led to millions of trademarks being registered with the USPTO.

Nevertheless, not all business names are eligible for trademark registration.

What Kinds of Names Can Exist Trademarked?

The USPTO will only register business organization name trademarks if they are distinctive and not probable to exist confused with an existing trademark.

The more distinctive the proper noun is, the easier it is to trademark.

"Coined" or made-upwardly names like "Xerox" are the easiest to trademark and receive the strongest protection. Names that use existing words in unique means—such as "Apple" computers—also brand stiff trademarks.
Names that suggest a product without describing it tin as well be trademarked. Examples are 'Greyhound" bus and "Goo Gone."
Descriptive concern names are the hardest to trademark. These include personal names, such as Ben & Jerry's ice cream; location names, such as "Chicago Pizza;" and names that describe a product or service, such as "Best Carpet Cleaning." The USPTO won't register a trademark for a descriptive name unless you tin can as well show that the name has been used so much that people automatically associate it with your product or service.

The USPTO may likewise deny your registration if your concern name is confusingly similar to an existing trademark. A confusingly similar name sounds like the proper name of another business that offers similar products or services, and then that people might think they are related. For example, Omega Hair Salon and O-Mayga Dazzler Shop might be confusingly similar considering the names audio akin and both businesses offer beauty services. Merely Omega Car Wash would probably not cause a likelihood of confusion because no 1 expects the same company to offer both hair care and car washes.

How to Trademark a Business Name

Before attempting to register a trademark with the USPTO, you should conduct a trademark search using a trademark search service or the USPTO's Trademark Electronic Search System to make up one's mind whether anyone else has registered a similar trademark for a similar type of goods or services.

If you conclude that your name is eligible for trademark registration, you tin can use to annals your trademark online. If you annals your name as a standard character mark, your trademark business concern proper name will cover your proper name displayed in any font, colour or design you lot choose. You lot tin can also register your proper noun as a special character mark that depicts your name in a particular color, font or pattern—but your trademark will extend merely to the exact design y'all submit.

Other Ways to Protect Your Business Name

What if you tin't, or don't want to, trademark a name? Your concern name may still have some valuable protections within your state.

If you form a business entity such every bit a corporation or limited liability company, your state will not let another business entity to be formed with the same name. If you practice not grade a business entity, you may nonetheless receive this protection by registering a trade proper name or "DBA" with your state.

If your business proper name is eligible for trademark protection, federal trademark registration is a fairly like shooting fish in a barrel process that gives you lot the right to enforce your trademark nationwide and can aid deter others from using your name. Registering is an peculiarly good thought if your business organisation operates in more i country and you're concerned that competitors will endeavor to use your name.