Do I Register My Business Name First
- Registering your brand name every bit a trademark is a simple three-stride process.
- You can annals your brand name with the USPTO to protect your intellectual property from misuse.
- It is not immediately necessary to secure a trademark, though information technology could do good your brand.
- This commodity is for small business owners who are ready to register and trademark their make proper noun or wondering whether they should.
Registering a trademark for your company is a large step that helps you protect your brand identity from misuse or theft. Registering a trademark is a fairly straightforward procedure that y'all can complete in just a few easy steps.
This guide will walk you through each pace needed to register and trademark your brand proper name, and respond some oftentimes asked questions nearly registering your trademark.
What is a trademark?
According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), a trademark is "a word, phrase, symbol, and/or design that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of i party from those of the others."
Steps to trademark your visitor proper noun
Trademarking your company's name is not every bit simple as filing for an LLC and may take more time than you imagine.
1. Search
First, you lot need to search the federal database to ensure the name y'all want to trademark isn't already protected as a trademark. You can do this with the USPTO'south Trademark Electronic Search System, also known as TESS. Y'all should search not but for the proper name you want, but for like names. Your registration could be denied if the proper name is also like to a proper noun already registered inside the same class.
While this sounds straightforward, it can exist complex. Iguana Ice Cream and Iguana'due south Ice Foam might be too like, for case. It can also mean that a registered trademark simply looks or sounds like your mark or that the meanings are similar.
2. Employ
Once you've searched and cleared the name you lot want to trademark, it's time to set your trademark application. Y'all can file for a name already in commercial employ or with an intent to utilise the name in the time to come.
The trademark application itself has 10 components:
- The name and accost of the applicant
- The citizenship and legal entity of the applicant
- A proper noun and address for future correspondence (this does not have to exist the same as the name of the bidder)
- A drawing of the desired mark (if yous are but applying for the name and don't want to include a design element, you just type in the name)
- A thorough clarification of the mark
- A specific list of services or appurtenances covered by the trademark application
- The form of services or goods
- An case of the mark in use likewise as the date it was first used
- A dated signature from you or an authorized representative
- The appropriate fee for the blazon and number of classes included on the application
iii. File
Once yous have completed the application, yous have two filing options: TEAS Plus and TEAS Standard. The Plus selection is less expensive and more streamlined; it as well has a lower rate of rejections. However, if yous need to create a custom description of your services or goods that is non bachelor in the preset list Plus provides, the chance associated with the Standard selection may exist more benign for your state of affairs.
Once y'all've submitted your awarding, you will receive a confirmation receipt from the USPTO and a serial number that y'all can use to check the status of your application in the Trademark Status & Document Retrieval (TSDR) portal.
Trademark FAQs
What is the departure between a trade name, trademark and service mark?
A trademark protects appurtenances, and a service mark does the same for services. All the same, the word "trademark" is sometimes used for both types of marks. Both are designed to limit the ability of competitors to mislead consumers with imitation claims of where a product or service originates.
A trade name is what is used in place of the official business name. This is often indicated on paperwork with the phrase "doing business organization as" (DBA). It is used when the business proper noun is considered too lengthy or when the desired name was too close to one that already had a trademark or service marker. (Note that a trade proper name does not betoken the legally responsible entity backside the service or product.)
Should you trademark your company name?
Information technology isn't necessary to register your marker to receive protectable rights. In the U.s.a., you are granted "mutual-law rights" to a mark only by using it as office of your business concern. This means that y'all could begin using it and enforce your buying of it through documentation of being the first to use it commercially. However, there are limitations on your rights with a common-police trademark.
Registering for a federal trademark has a number of advantages. Near importantly, it gives y'all legal ownership of the mark and the exclusive rights to use information technology anywhere in the nation as it relates to the goods or services you listed during registration. Common-law rights are limited to the immediate geographic area in which you are operating, and registering the proper name with your country only protects your rights within the borders of that country.
When you register your marking with the USPTO, at that place will be a public notice stating your buying, and it will be listed in the online database. With a federally registered trademark, you also have the option to register your trademark with the U.Due south. Customs and Border Protection to keep foreign goods from beingness imported with the same proper name. You'll also be able to use the federal symbol ® instead of the less enforceable ™ mark.
The name of your visitor is the main fashion you present it to the world. Imagine someone else using your visitor'southward proper name to brand offers that are antonymous to the mission and values of your business organisation. If you lot want to afford your business concern the maximum legal protection, you will demand a trademark.
When you file for a trademark, information technology but covers one nomenclature. Each boosted nomenclature must be noted in the awarding and will incur an additional charge. At that place are 45 classes to be considered. For example, if your business produces vehicles, you would desire a Class 12 trademark. If you additionally wanted to sell vesture with the proper name of the same company on information technology, y'all would need to also have a Grade 25 trademark. Consider exactly how y'all will be using the name to determine which class or classes y'all should list it under.
Who should trademark their concern name?
If your business organisation has a unique proper name, it tin can exist trademarked as long as it isn't too similar to another name that has already received a trademark. For example, if the name is too vague, like The Ice Cream Shop, it is unlikely to be eligible for a trademark. Something like Iguana Ice Cream would be more likely to receive a trademark, since it joins mutual words in a unique way.
It is also important to consider the geographical expanse yous will be serving. The mutual-constabulary trademark protection that yous automatically receive by using the name is restricted to your immediate geographic surface area. If your business concern serves multiple states, you lot'll definitely want to apply for a trademark to protect your business organization.
If yous have several product lines within your business that also have unique names, y'all may want to trademark those likewise. For example, Ford is a trademark of the Ford Motor Company, which too has trademarks for lines of vehicles such as the F-150, Mustang, Ranger and Explorer.
Should I become a trademark or LLC first?
Whether y'all should register for a trademark or an LLC first largely depends on your business goals.
A limited liability company (LLC) is a business structure nomenclature within the U.S. that describes a private limited company. Information technology is commonly issued past the country in which the company operates, although y'all can receive an LLC from whatsoever country. An LLC registration usually takes less than a day to process, while a trademark takes an boilerplate of three months.
If y'all want to begin operating immediately, it makes sense to register for the LLC first. If you have plenty of atomic number 82 time and are more interested in securing your federal rights to the name before you put information technology out into the globe, out of fear that it may be co-opted past someone else, then it makes more sense to use for the trademark first.
Does your business need a trademark registration correct away?
Your business does not need to register for a trademark right away.
Typically you need to exist able to show "use in commerce" when registering for a mark, which means that you should be able to bear witness information technology was being used before you could register information technology. Withal, there is the option to utilize for an intent-to-use (ITU) trademark.
If you proceed with an ITU trademark, you still have to demonstrate your apply of the mark in commerce past completing the documentation and paying the additional fees within the allotted timeframe prior to the mark'southward registration.
At that place are but 3 periods inside which you tin can claim use in commerce:
- Prior to approval for publication
- Within six months of the issuance of the detect of allowance (NOA)
- Within the fourth dimension granted by an extension
You lot tin establish use in commerce in several different ways, including the following:
- Placing the mark on your goods sold or your website for goods sold
- Using the marker in association with services existence sold
There are iii types of commerce under federal law:
- Foreign commerce
- Territorial
- Interstate
What is not typically adequate is intrastate commerce, pregnant business that is express to the borders of a single country.
If your business can't nevertheless prove you are using the trademark in commerce, or if you won't be able to prove it inside the confines of the ICU process, there is no reason to utilise for the trademark outset.
If I register a business organisation name, do I need to annals a trademark?
Registering a business name is typically done at the state level and does not provide federal protection. If yous are only going to provide services or products within that state, there is no reason to annals for a trademark. If y'all are offer products and services in multiple states and want federal protection for the proper noun of your business organisation, though, you would demand to register for a trademark.
How tin you tell if someone else already has rights to a mark?
TESS makes it easy to search the federal database of trademarks in diverse ways. The "basic word mark search" allows you to search names, words and phrases that have received a federal trademark.
The "give-and-take and/or design mark search" allows you to use either a design or words or a combination of the two to search the database. However, you will probable demand to know the design codes to exercise this effectively.
There is also the option to browse the directory or individual fields within the database. If you aren't sure exactly what might have been trademarked just you know a general date, y'all can search past registration or publication date.
If your registration is accepted, how long is that registration valid?
A trademark registration is valid for as long as you lot are willing to maintain it. Once a trademark is issued, it does not expire as long equally it remains in use for the registered purpose. You see, a trademark does not grant yous buying of the word, phrase or image; it gives you lot the correct to that give-and-take, phrase or image as it is used to identify the services or goods listed in the registration.
Nonetheless, using information technology isn't quite enough. You must give the USPTO proof that the trademark has remained in utilise by filing a Section 8 proclamation between the fifth and sixth ceremony of the registration. This is a unproblematic sworn statement.
Upon the registration's 10th anniversary, bodily proof is required. This tin exist an epitome of your production or service using the trademark. You must do this every 10 years.
Source: https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/15762-how-to-register-trademark-brand-name.html
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