By Shashank Jain
When you are going to start any business, the first thing you should consider is your Business name. Because your business name reflects your credibility to the outside world. So, it does not need any explanation of how important a business name is to its owner.
We all want our business name to be unique, right?
Imagine you are investing huge bucks to your business and advertising your company by working hard to get customer’s attention and then all of a sudden you come to know that your business name got copied by one of our competitors, how disappointing it would be?
So, to be unique, you should protect your business name first.
To prevent your business name from others to use it, you must register a trademark for your business name.
Why Having A Unique Business Name Is Important?
Your business name must be a unique one to create a positive impression on your customers.
A strong business name not only helps you to get the attention of the customers but also allows your customers to understand your business efficiently without any confusion.
Another advantage of having a unique business name is that it will help you to get the trademark for your business name without any hassle.
It is one of the best ways to stand out your business from a crowd of competition by choosing an appropriate name for your business.
What Is A Trademark?
A trademark is a protection for any symbol, business name, logos, labels, product, and service names, which helps to identify them from any other source. That means a trademark is a unique mark for any goods and products services which not only gives the owner the exclusive right to use the mark but also allows them to prevent their patent mark from others to use it.
You can acquire the right to use the mark through the legitimate use of it while you conduct your business that is in a commercial setting.
Federal registration, i.e. registering your trademark with U.S. patent and trademark office (USPTO) offers additional protections though in general it is not required.
Why Trademarking Your Business Name Is Important?
If you are planning for a small local business, then you can prevent your trademark from people in your immediate location by having common law trademark protection. You can acquire the common law trademark protection by using your trademark only.
There is no need for any federal registration.
But if you want your business to expand worldwide, then the common law trademark protection cannot help you much. For that, you must go for federal registration for federal protection of the trademark representing your business name.
The federal registration rules and regulations are issued by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). There are some specific advantages of federal registration.
The advantages are:
- When you are doing any online-based business, then your trademark will be protected nationwide.
- Since your trademark ownership will become a part of USPTO’s database, it will create a public record along with the date of commencement of using it.
- When someone searches for a similar trademark, they will get to see your trademark and less likely to use it.
- You can register your trademark in other countries with the help of U.S. registration.
- The trademark owner can file a lawsuit regarding the mark in the federal court.
- You can use the registered trademark symbol once the registration is done.
What Is The Procedure Of Getting A Trademark?
You can easily register your trademark for your business name without a lawyer’s help. The easiest way to register your trademark through online on the USPTO’s Trademark Electronic Application System (TEAS).
Before filling the application form on the website, check the site’s database to get sure that similar trademark has not already registered by any other company for the same services, you are applying for. Otherwise, your registration will be rejected and you can’t proceed further without a lawyer’s help.
Following data are needed to fill the application form:
- Applicant’s name
- A name and corresponding address between the USPTO and the applicant
- A picture or depiction of the trademark
- Services/products list which is associated with that mark
- Fees for the registration
- Some may also need to include a specimen of use for the mark as an example.
If an applicant fails to include any of these above-mentioned required things, then their application would be rejected and it would return to the applicant along with a refund of the registration fee.
If you have any further queries regarding your trademark protection, you can contact an experienced trademark attorney nearby you.
For more information such as copyrights or patents, you can visit some website’s trademark law legal answer pages.
Is there any other option to protect the business name?
If your business entity is in the form of a corporation or limited liability company, you will get some valuable protections within your state without a trademark name.
Any other business entity will not be allowed to use a similar business name of yours by your state.
Conclusion: Trademarking your business name is an essential thing to prevent your business name from other similar companies. However, all business names don’t need federal registration. If your business is confined to any particular area, then you can go for state-level registration of a trademark to avail of the common law protections.
But for worldwide business federal registration of a trademark is needed to get all the additional advantages.
However, to get federal registration, your business name should be individual than any other similar existing business and the more unique the business name is, the easier it is to trademark.
