Can i trademark my business name [Guide]

Last updated : Sept 19, 2022

Should I copyright or trademark my business name?

A trademark can protect your name and logo in case someone else wants to use them for their own purposes. Also, you cannot really copyright a name, since copyright protects artistic works. This is exactly why you need to have a trademark that protects your company's intellectual property, such as your logo.

What happens if someone trademarks your company name?

Trademark Registration Then, the owner can face a lawsuit for using the same name as someone else even if the second party registered a trademark for the company after the first owner created the company. These situations usually require the services of a lawyer to both understand and pursue.

Should I trademark my business name before forming my LLC?

In most cases, the best time to file a trademark application for your business name is right after you've filed paperwork to form your LLC or corporation. By doing this before your business officially launches, it protects the name for commercial use once you're up and running.

Can I trademark an existing business name?

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 make sure no one steals my business name?

Your brand is your company's identity, so it's critical to secure it with a trademark, which prevents someone from improperly using your business name or branding. To get a trademark, you'll need to file an application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

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.

What is the cheapest way to 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).

What's the difference between LLC and trademark?

Legal Protection LLCs and trademarks are each an integral part of the business world, but both serve different purposes. While LLCs are legal business entities that protect the personal assets of business owners from lawsuits and bankruptcies, trademarks protect the intellectual property of the business.

Should I trademark my business logo?

Trademarks protect words, names, symbols, sounds and colors and distinguish one company's goods and products from another. Trademarking a logo not only protects it from being used by other similar companies, it also protects a company from unknowingly infringing upon an existing logo.

Which Comes First LLC or trademark?

The trademark needs to be owned by someone. The trademark owner is typically going to be the one who is using the trademark. If the plan is to form an LLC to operate your business using that trademark, then the LLC would be the trademark owner. So the LLC needs to exist before the application is filed.

What should you do first LLC 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.

How hard is it to trademark a business name?

Registering a trademark is a fairly straightforward process that you can complete in just a few easy steps. This guide will walk you through each step needed to register and trademark your brand name, and answer some frequently asked questions about registering your trademark.

Can 2 businesses have the same name?

Can Two Companies Have the Same Name? Yes, however, certain requirements must be met in order for it to not constitutes trademark infringement and to determine which party is the rightful owner of the name.

What names Cannot be trademarked?

• 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.

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.

Can someone steal my business name by registering it as a trademark?

Anyone can snatch up a business name and use it for their own business. There's no one uniform database or agency that ensures only one business is using a specific business name. That's how we often see very similar company names that aren't related by franchise or corporate ownership from one state to another.

Can someone sue you for having a similar business name?

A trademark lawsuit will require you to prove three things: You have registered a trademark or service mark in the name. Someone else is using the same or similar name to sell similar goods and services to yours. The infringer's use of the name is confusing customers or diluting the power of your trademark.

Should I patent my business name?

Protect Sales: Registering your business name for a trademark protects your sales by preventing consumer confusion. For example, if another company uses the same or a similar name to yours and sells a similar product, customers might think they're buying from you instead of your competitors.

What are the three types of trademarks?

What you'll learn: Arbitrary and Fanciful Trademarks. Suggestive Trademarks. Descriptive Trademarks.

How long does a trademark take to get approved?

Usually, the process takes 12 to 18 months. Registering your trademark is a complex procedure that involves your application moving through various stages. Learning about each stage in the process will help you understand why getting a trademark takes as long as it does.

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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 for your comment Blake Westgaard, have a nice day.
- Hermine Thome, Staff Member

all right so if you clicked on this video then you're probably at a point in your business where you're getting ready to get all of your intellectual property matters in order you're probably prepping up to get your trademarks file and then all of a sudden you're like okay do I just trademark my name or do i trademark my logo can I really do them both and the answer to all of those questions is yes pedal out all my little legal eagles thank you so much for clicking the video my name is Jolene dual-career you can call me Jill D and you're watching my channel where we talk about cannabis business and entrepreneurship from a legal perspective if you're not already subscribed to the channel you can join our awesome little community here on YouTube by smashing that red subscribe button down below on the bottom of this video and hitting that little bell button so you can get notified every single time I post a new video here on YouTube if you really want to get in the action though you can join my exclusive text community by texting this number right here and it actually does come through to me and I do respond to all of my text messages so go ahead and join text me and say hey this week's video is a follow-up to some of the trademark videos I've done in the past you can catch them here and here and one of the most frequently asked questions I get in response to those videos are whether or not someone should file a trademark application for both their name and their logo and my answer to that question is always a resounding yes but it also depends sometimes it's not economically feasible to file a trademark application for both your name and the local at the same time I understand it I run small businesses and sometimes your budget just does not allow for all of this extravagant IP protection strategy all at the same time sometimes you have to space it out a little bit if you know what I mean and stretch the dollar I get it so in this video I'm gonna go through the reasons why you would want to file a trademark application for your name and the reasons why you would want to file a trademark application for your logo and then you can process this information and figure out what's the most important to you and based on that information you can go ahead and file the most appropriate application for you so first your logo so trademarking your logo when I talk about trademarking I'm talking about the process that you go through with the United States Patent and Trademark Office the federal process I'm not talking about the state process I could do a whole other separate video on trademarking with your State but in all of these videos I'm specifically talking about the federal prostitute that in mind so there's no confusion about it alright so with your logo what is your logo basically it's a visual depiction a design or some sort of symbol that identifies your goods your services or your brand if you will this symbol is basically used to promote the public's Association of that symbol or design with your brand one of the main reasons that you would want to get a trademark for your logo is to protect yourself from other people using your logo without your permission or confusing the public about the identity of your brand and basically aligning themselves with your brand without your permission you wouldn't have control over how that logo is then used to a certain extent so especially in situations where your logo is one of the more prominent features of your brand and it's something that the public really identifies your brand as and they look to that logo and they know it's you then I would want to prioritize the trademark filing for the logo and that would help to mitigate any sort of risk of anybody misappropriating your logo and using it without your permission and sort of you know getting you a little bit more protection in that department so when it comes to social media having the protection can really help you in situations where people are using your logo on social media accounts without your permission have you ever noticed how certain celebrity names and certain brands you never see them reposted on social media and if you do see them sometimes it's taken down immediately intellectual property protection and strategies are a very very powerful tool first stuff like that if it's done correctly so when it comes to trade marking your name you would have somewhat of a similar breakdown you want to secure your actual name to prevent anyone else from using the same name or a very very similar name to yours in the same industry that you're operating your business in your name is actually separate and distinct from your logo so your name is just your name and your logo is just your logo so if your actual name is the more prominent thing when compared to your logo then you might want to consider filing the trademark application for your name first before your logo if that's what's the most important thing out of the two so again if you have to make the decision if you have to make a choice you need to really figure out which one of the two are the most important to you and take it from there but if you need any more detailed information on trademarking and the process for trademarking i have videos that are linked below in the description box for you and they're linked at the end of the video so if you're in a position where you can file a trademark application for both your name and your logo then great go ahead and do so that's awesome but don't stop there go ahead and look at other areas of your business that you think deserve intellectual property protection I actually have an entire video where I go over trademark patents copyrights trade secrets and a whole bunch of different strategies for protecting your business's intellectual property and these are intangible assets I always say that but they're worth protecting in that video I also have a link to a free workbook and I'll go ahead and link it here to for you in the cards that you can download to get you exercising a little bit and putting all of your intellectual property matters on paper so you can have a high level overview of the things that you need to consider protecting from an intellectual property standpoint the workbook really does help you get organized and it's free to download so now it's time to shout out my viewer of the week thank you so much for watching commenting and for your support I truly truly truly appreciate it if you want to be featured on a video and for me to shout you out please go ahead and leave your I G handle down in the comments and take a screenshot of this video posted to your IG story and tag me so I can follow you back and I can see you and then next week I will pick someone randomly to shout out alright guys please be safe out there and please exercise social distancing during this lockdown I hope you guys are doing well and holding up and trying to stay active and productive during this time I know is super super difficult I'm losing my mind oh my god but if you have any questions at all feel free to hit me up in the comments hit me up on a DM

Thanks Genevive your participation is very much appreciated
- Hermine Thome

About the author

Hermine Thome

I've studied common law at University of California, Los Angeles in Los Angeles and I am an expert in logic (outline). I usually feel impressed. My previous job was harbor master I held this position for 26 years, I love talking about snowboarding and rock balancing. Huge fan of Wiz Khalifa I practice ultimate frisbee and collect comic books.