can i register my business name as a trademark [Best Info]

Last updated : Sept 17, 2022

Can your business name also be your trademark?

When the USPTO approves a business name as a registered trademark, the owner has exclusive rights—at the state and federal level—to use the name. A trademark prevents anyone else from selling similar goods and services within the United States under that business name.

Do I need to trademark my business name?

There's no legal requirement for you to register a trademark. Using a business name can give you 'common law' rights, even without formally registering it.

How do you get a trademark for a business name?

Key takeaway: To register and trademark your brand name, search the TESS database for similar brand names, fill out the trademark application and submit it to the USPTO for review.

Do I copyright or trademark my business name?

Copyrights primarily protect the rights of people who create literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works (like history tests, and software code). Trademarks protect the use of a company's name and its product names, brand identity (like logos) and slogans.

Should I get a trademark or LLC first?

4. Should you get an LLC first or trademark? Yes, you should get an LLC first before a trademark because the trademark application will need to identify the LLC as the trademark owner. You should create an LLC or business entity before you file a trademark application.

What is the difference between registering a business name and a trademark?

A trademark is registered to identify a product or service. A business name is registered to identify a business that wishes to trade other than with its own name.

What happens if I don't trademark my business?

If you do not register your trademark, you will have legal rights only within the geographic areas where you operate. This means you may be able to stop a subsequent user of the mark, even if it is a bigger company, from using the mark in your geographic area only.

How long does a trademark last?

A federal trademark lasts 10 years from the date of registration, with 10-year renewal terms. Between the fifth and sixth year after the registration date, the registrant must file an affidavit to state that the mark is still in use.

How do I trademark my business name for free?

You can not register a trademark for free. However, you can establish something known as a "common law trademark" for free, simply by opening for business. The benefit of relying on common law trademark rights is that it's free, and you don't need to do any specific work filling out forms, etc.

How much is a trademark?

No matter how you file, you will pay a minimum of $250 to apply for a Federal trademark. But considering the importance of your trademark, and the potential complexities you face when filing, it's not a bad idea to use a lawyer or filing service.

What are the benefits of registering a trademark?

• A Federal Trademark Registration Protects Against Infringement.
• A Federal Trademark Registration Provides Nationwide Validity.
• A Federal Trademark Registration is a Valuable Asset.
• Unique Trademarks Helps Customers Find You.

Can you trademark a name already in use but not trademarked?

1. Can You File for a Trademark That Exists? Updated November 12, 2020: If you're wondering, "can you trademark something that already exists," the simple answer is "no." Generally speaking, if somebody has used a trademark before you, you can't register the trademark for yourself.

How do I protect my business name?

Trademark. A trademark can protect the name of your business, goods, and services at a national level. Trademarks prevent others in the same (or similar) industry in the United States from using your trademarked names.

What can you not trademark?

• Proper names or likenesses without consent from the person.
• Generic terms, phrases, or the like.
• Government symbols or insignia.
• Vulgar or disparaging words or phrases.
• The likeness of a U.S. President, former or current.
• Immoral, deceptive, or scandalous words or symbols.
• Sounds or short motifs.

Is it better to copyright or trademark a logo?

How to legally protect your logo design. To protect your logo, you need a trademark or service mark (trademarks are generally used for products, while service marks are usually applied to services). You should not copyright or patent a logo design.

What is the cheapest way to get a trademark?

The basic cost to trademark a business name ranges from $225 to $600 per trademark class. This is the cost to submit your trademark application to the USPTO. The easiest and least expensive way to register your trademark is online, through the USPTO's Trademark Electronic Application System (TEAS).

How hard is it to trademark a business name?

Registering a trademark for a company name is pretty straightforward. Many businesses can file an application online in less than 90 minutes, without a lawyer's help. The simplest way to register is on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's Web site, www.uspto.gov.

When can I start using my trademark?

Once we file the trademark within 1-2 days you may start using the TM symbol and after receiving a certificate you can use the ® symbol.

Do you need an EIN for a trademark?

The trademark registration of a business name is not always necessary, but doing so can prevent future allegations of trademark infringement or market confusion. Once your business has a name, you are ready to acquire an EIN. An EIN provides your business with a unique identification number for tax purposes.

What happens if a business uses a registered trademark?

A registered trade mark provides you with exclusive rights to use, license and sell the mark. It's also a valuable marketing tool because the value of your trade mark increases with the success of your business.

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man oh man that how to trademark your uh business name video that i put up about a year ago oh it's so cringeworthy it's yellow it's grainy i feel like i was just so confusing and talking a whole bunch of crap in that video so that is why we're putting up a whole new updated how to trademark your business name video for 2021. what's up everyone what's up fam welcome back to the channel for my og subbies and for my new folks welcome welcome my name is jolene dukedeer you can call me jill d and on this channel we talk about cannabis business and entrepreneurship from a legal perspective and today we're talking a little bit about how to trademark your business name i have an old video that i put up in 2020 my og subscribers know what i'm talking about it is so yellow and so grainy so outdated i hate that video it's one of my most popular videos to date but i think we could do better so today we're gonna do an updated version of that video i'm gonna go into a little bit more detail and hopefully it'll be a little bit easier to understand for you guys before i jump in please don't forget to subscribe to the channel share the video with someone who you think could benefit from the content and like it and give it a thumbs up if you enjoy the content i would really appreciate it and i appreciate you for watching so at the outset the beginning of this entire filing for a trademark for your business name process we want to go ahead and do some background research and some digging before we even touch an application all right so that's gonna mean you're gonna hit up google run a quick search for your business name or names that are similar to yours check out the different social media platforms and see what's out there if you run into things that are like established businesses that have the same name or a similar name to yours that might be an indication that there is a pending mark or an already registered mark already existing with the patent and trademark office and that could present a problem for you down the road but the most important step in this background research is getting a trademark search done like a clearance search there is a database that the patent and trademark office provides all of us it's public that you can search to find different marks that are registered that are dead that are live that are pending and it's called tests t-e-s-s and where would we find test jill it's linked for you below in the description box it's literally similar to google so you would just put your business name in there or any variation thereof and it should pull up any pending registered or dead marks that contain your name that is the same as your name or maybe even similar to your name in some instances so you could look at the records and see what's out there that is pending or registered or dead with the patent and trademark office so if you pull up a bunch of records and they have the same name as you that is an indication that you might run into some problems in the future with your trademark application so it's very important that you go into each record and take a look at what's there are they abandoned are they dead are they live are they registered these things do matter so take a look at each record that you pull up that's similar or the same to your as yours and um dive in a little bit deeper and see what's really going on with that record now if you are doing this my chair is really squeaky if you're doing this and you are confused or you can't make heads or tails of anything that you're seeing and you're it's just stressing you out and you're not confident then at that point i recommend that you get a legal professional to assist you with doing the clearance search the trademark clearance search it doesn't have to be me it's just anyone that knows what they're doing so that you can interpret the results correctly and make a decision based on the feedback a good sound decision based on the feedback because you don't want to get to the end of the process where you've already paid for this application just to get a refusal letter saying that there's somebody else that has the same name as you um or whatever the case may be so do the upfront work so you don't have to worry about it at the back end i'm all for you guys doing things diy i love to diy myself but sometimes it just makes more sense to have someone else help you and that's real talk no cap why did i say cap like that no cap no cap it's no cap right whatever put no cap down in the comments so the next thing you'll want to do after you've already done your clearance search and you've gotten your head wrapped your head around on your actual name and what's out there is you're going to want to get a handle on what class or classes you're gonna file in i already have a video that goes over trademark classes i'll go ahead and put the thumbnail here and link it in the cards for you above and i also put a link in the description box so y'all can't you like you just can't miss it that video goes over the 45 different um trademark classes like not in detail all 45 but it gives you a good overview of what trademark classes are and how they play with your whole trademark registration in general so the way that you can um actually sort of figure out or get a good idea about what sort of classes you'll fall into or class you'll fall into is you can run a search on the patent and trademark office's id manual and i also link that for you down below you navigate to that you can put in like your industry or your type of goods that you're going to be selling let's just say clothing for example if you put in clothing you'll see a ton of results that come up you'll see on one side a bunch of numbers which will include the class for that particular um good or service and then you'll also see a series of descriptions so if you go through that these are already existing in the patent and trademark office database they're already there so if you go through that you can get a good sense of what class you need to be in and then take a look at the descriptions and see if they're appropriate for you so now that you've gathered up all of this background information you've got a clearance search done you have a good idea of what's out there like with your name or a similar name and now you have a good idea of what class you're going to be filing in or classes you're going to be filing in along with a description of your goods or services you should be at a good point to start your trademark application so you can do this online there's an electronic application i don't know who's still doing a whole bunch of paper stuff in 2021 or at all we're not even going to mention 2020 like we're going to go what was it whatever 2019 um we're not even going to talk about 2020 but like yeah there's electronic applications there's uh several different options that you have available to you and each application type has different features so it's probably a good idea to go and research each application type to see what the requirements are and to see if they fit your situation once you've selected your application type

Thanks for your comment Lawerence Fleischner, have a nice day.
- Rodrigo Scaglione, Staff Member

question the day here today when should you trademark your business name or your logo or your brand I'm gonna tell you just a second hey my name is Jim Hart I'm the founding attorney here at Hawthorn law and you might be wondering gem why are you sitting on the floor in front of this couch with the lighting that's awful to be perfectly honest it's because I'm in our land over them at the airport and I made this stupid terrible mistake if you've ever been to the Orlando Airport they have this atrium and you can either get a room that overlooks the atrium or you get a room that overlooks the runway typically I get a room that overlooks the runway they didn't have any available I flew in early this morning I needed a nap I just I was like I need a room fit the bullet I got this room but the lighting is not nearly as good as what I'm used to in the other room check out some my older videos and you'll see how much better the lighting is in those rooms anyway not that you really care you want to know when to trademark your logo or brand hold on a second I was talking to a client yesterday I did a I've still got some spots available for next week but I opened up a consult I greatly reduced my rate from $350 an hour to $200 an hour for a limited time to open up some half-hour slots between now and Christmas so you can get a consult with me if you need to consult for $97 I'll link to the link up here to get more information on that but anyway I was having a consult with somebody who took advantage of this offer earlier this week and one of the questions we were talking about was when they should trademark their brand or their logo or whatever this is a great question the appropriate legal answer is that you should trademark your brand name as soon as you possibly can that's not always practical there's some people that that for whatever reason because the money is tight or whatever they can't do it right away but if you've got a really good idea for a brand and you want to make sure nobody else starts stealing your intellectual property you need to get that trademark as soon as possible get that puppy trademark so that would be my official legal recommendation is to anyone who asks you need to get it done as soon as possible now there's there's a couple ways that you can go about trademarking a brand especially when you're just starting out the first way is if you're actually using it to sell products or services then you can just go ahead and file a trademark application to get a trademark immediately if you're not yet using it to sell products or services but maybe you've got it on your website and you're just kind of starting to build up a business but you haven't actually used it to sell anything yet and you've got a great idea you want to make sure nobody steals it then you can file what's called a notice of use trademark application which is it's it's the same application you just check a different box in the application and basically what happens is you go through the same process then you're given a period of time where you can start using the trademark because the trademark doesn't actually provide you any protection unless you're selling a good or service and so what you get is you get you get extra time to start selling your good or service your goods or services maybe that's a better way to say that anyway you get extra time and then if within that period of time you can either file for an extension or if you start using your trademark you file a notice that you've started using the trademark and then the trademark will register and then you're good to go from there but if not then you get an extension and you've got a couple extensions so in all I'll told you can get a couple of years to basically start using that trademark and if you don't start using the trademark then you can just abandon the application and it goes back out there into the the world is anybody else care plan for that trademark if they wanted to my advice to you is if you're looking to build a business or a brand that you really want to grow and you think that you've got a really great name that that you want to protect then you want to trademark that brand or name as soon as possible I think a great example of this was and I forget her name the woman who created Spanx she didn't tell anybody about her brand for a year for at least a year there was an interview I heard where she was talking about this I'll try and link up down below to the interview with this woman it was on a podcast and she talked about how she went through methodical steps to do everything she could to protect the brand Spanx through she filing her patent application getting the process patented and her trademark and everything else as soon as she possibly could without telling anyone about what she was doing and then when a time came for her to start selling she had it all in place that's a great example of why you need to do it early because she had a great name a great concept and she wanted to make sure it was protected I'll do another a video on all the different reasons why you should trademark your brand but I just wanted to do this video to answer those questions for those of you out that are wondering when you should do it how soon you should do it if you want to do the trademark application yourself I don't recommend it but you can do it yourself if you've got a good name that's easily too tricky I just can't talk today if you've got a good name that's easy to trademark you can probably do it for the cost of the filing fee which is around three hundred dollars if you really want some legal guidance and you want to do a search and you want to figure out if anyone else is using this trademark and you want some help doing all that you've got two choices you can either hire an attorney which this is something that we do to do this for you or you can join our DIY legal program I'll include a link up here where we do a tutorial on how to trademark your brand and how to come up with a good name and all those type of things and that's something that we're going to include in that program so so there are other ways to do it they're a little bit less expensive anyway that's it for today I hope you're having a great day I also have a free training I'm gonna link up up here if you want to watch a replay of the webinar that I did several months ago that has gotten a lot of positive reviews you can go ahead and do that that's it for today folks have a great day don't forget give us a thumbs up comment below if you've got a question you know just type trademark and let me know that you're listening that you understand what I'm saying or if you just have a comment that you want leave a comment below and ask a question that's fine we'll use that for future videos we do not answer illegal questions in YouTube comments that is a big no-no don't forget to subscribe yeah that's down here and hit the little Bell thingy and can get notified whenever we post new videos we're posting videos about once a week going forward for my DIY members I'm looking to do a Q&A call every Friday for them I don't th

Thanks cutecamillepos your participation is very much appreciated
- Rodrigo Scaglione

About the author

Rodrigo Scaglione

I've studied forensic astronomy at University of North Dakota in Grand Forks and I am an expert in sociology of immigration. I usually feel discontent. My previous job was computer systems engineer I held this position for 21 years, I love talking about fencing and cardistry. Huge fan of Bill Gates I practice acrobatic gymnastics and collect toys.