Can You Register Your Name As A Trademark

Registering your brand name as a trademark is a simple three-step process.
You lot can register your brand name with the USPTO to protect your intellectual holding from misuse.
It is not immediately necessary to secure a trademark, though it could benefit your brand.
This article is for modest business organization owners who are prepare to annals and trademark their make name 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 adequately straightforward process that y'all tin complete in only 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 almost registering your trademark.

What is a trademark?

According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), a trademark is "a give-and-take, phrase, symbol, and/or blueprint that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of the others."

Steps to trademark your company name

Trademarking your company's name is not as simple as filing for an LLC and may accept more than fourth dimension than yous imagine.

ane. Search

First, yous need to search the federal database to ensure the proper name you lot desire to trademark isn't already protected as a trademark. You tin can do this with the USPTO's Trademark Electronic Search Organisation, also known as TESS. You lot should search not just for the proper noun you want, merely for similar names. Your registration could exist denied if the proper noun is too similar to a name already registered inside the same class.

While this sounds straightforward, information technology can be circuitous. Iguana Ice Cream and Iguana'south Ice Cream might be too similar, for case. It can also hateful that a registered trademark simply looks or sounds like your mark or that the meanings are similar.

2. Employ

Once y'all've searched and cleared the name you want to trademark, information technology's time to prepare your trademark application. You lot can file for a name already in commercial utilize or with an intent to utilise the name in the future.

The trademark application itself has 10 components:

The name and address of the applicant
The citizenship and legal entity of the applicant
A proper name and address for future correspondence (this does not have to be the aforementioned equally the proper noun of the applicant)
A drawing of the desired mark (if you lot are only applying for the name and don't want to include a design element, you simply type in the proper noun)
A thorough description of the marker
A specific list of services or appurtenances covered by the trademark awarding
The class of services or appurtenances
An example of the mark in use as well equally the date information technology was first used
A dated signature from you or an authorized representative
The appropriate fee for the type and number of classes included on the application

3. File

Once you have completed the application, y'all accept two filing options: TEAS Plus and TEAS Standard. The Plus choice is less expensive and more streamlined; information technology also has a lower rate of rejections. Yet, if you need to create a custom description of your services or goods that is not available in the preset list Plus provides, the risk associated with the Standard selection may be more than benign for your situation.

Once yous've submitted your awarding, you will receive a confirmation receipt from the USPTO and a serial number that you tin can use to check the condition of your application in the Trademark Status & Document Retrieval (TSDR) portal.

Key takeaway Fundamental takeaway: To register and trademark your brand name, search the TESS database for like brand names, fill up out the trademark awarding, and submit information technology to the USPTO for review.

Trademark FAQs

What is the deviation between a trade name, trademark and service mark?

A trademark protects goods, and a service marker does the same for services. However, the word "trademark" is sometimes used for both types of marks. Both are designed to limit the ability of competitors to mislead consumers with false 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 equally" (DBA). It is used when the business proper noun is considered as well lengthy or when the desired name was besides close to one that already had a trademark or service mark. (Note that a trade proper name does non indicate the legally responsible entity behind the service or production.)

Should you trademark your company proper noun?

It isn't necessary to register your mark to receive protectable rights. In the United states, you are granted "mutual-law rights" to a marking only past using information technology as part of your business organisation. This means that you could brainstorm using it and enforce your ownership of information technology through documentation of existence the first to use it commercially. However, in that location are limitations on your rights with a common-law trademark.

Registering for a federal trademark has a number of advantages. Well-nigh chiefly, information technology gives you legal ownership of the mark and the exclusive rights to use it anywhere in the nation as information technology relates to the goods or services you listed during registration. Common-police force rights are limited to the immediate geographic surface area in which you are operating, and registering the proper name with your country merely protects your rights inside the borders of that state.

When you register your mark with the USPTO, there volition be a public notice stating your ownership, 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.S. Customs and Border Protection to keep foreign goods from being imported with the same proper noun. You'll too be able to apply the federal symbol ® instead of the less enforceable ™ mark.

The proper name of your company is the chief way you present it to the world. Imagine someone else using your company's name to make offers that are antonymous to the mission and values of your business. If yous want to beget your concern the maximum legal protection, you volition need a trademark.

When y'all file for a trademark, it only covers i classification. Each additional classification must be noted in the application and will incur an boosted accuse. There are 45 classes to exist considered. For example, if your business produces vehicles, you lot would want a Class 12 trademark. If y'all additionally wanted to sell vesture with the proper noun of the same company on it, yous would demand to also take a Form 25 trademark. Consider exactly how you will exist using the name to determine which class or classes you should list it under.

Who should trademark their business organisation name?

If your business has a unique proper noun, information technology tin be trademarked as long as information technology isn't as well similar to another proper noun that has already received a trademark. For example, if the proper name is as well vague, like The Ice Cream Store, it is unlikely to be eligible for a trademark. Something like Iguana Water ice Cream would be more likely to receive a trademark, since information technology joins common words in a unique fashion.

It is also important to consider the geographical expanse you will be serving. The mutual-police force trademark protection that you automatically receive by using the name is restricted to your immediate geographic area. If your concern serves multiple states, yous'll definitely want to apply for a trademark to protect your business.

If you accept several product lines within your concern that too take unique names, you may want to trademark those every bit well. For example, Ford is a trademark of the Ford Motor Company, which as well has trademarks for lines of vehicles such as the F-150, Mustang, Ranger and Explorer.

Did you know? The mutual-law trademark protection that you automatically receive for your business proper noun is simply restricted to your immediate geographic area. If your business organization operates in multiple states, you should apply for a trademark.

Should I get 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 classification within the U.S. that describes a private express visitor. It is usually issued past the land in which the company operates, although you can receive an LLC from any state. An LLC registration normally takes less than a day to procedure, while a trademark takes an boilerplate of three months.

If you want to begin operating immediately, it makes sense to register for the LLC first. If y'all have enough of lead time and are more interested in securing your federal rights to the proper noun earlier you put it out into the world, out of fright that it may exist co-opted past someone else, then it makes more than sense to utilise for the trademark first.

Does your business need a trademark registration right away?

Your business does non need to register for a trademark right away.

Typically you lot need to exist able to bear witness "apply in commerce" when registering for a mark, which means that you should exist able to prove it was beingness used before you lot could register it. Nonetheless, in that location is the option to apply for an intent-to-use (ITU) trademark.

If you keep with an ITU trademark, you lot still accept to demonstrate your apply of the mark in commerce by completing the documentation and paying the additional fees within the allotted timeframe prior to the marker'southward registration.

There are simply iii periods within which you lot tin can claim use in commerce:

Prior to approval for publication
Inside six months of the issuance of the notice of allowance (NOA)
Within the time granted by an extension

You tin establish apply in commerce in several different ways, including the following:

Placing the mark on your appurtenances sold or your website for goods sold
Using the marking in association with services being sold

There are 3 types of commerce nether federal law:

Foreign commerce
Territorial
Interstate

What is not typically acceptable is intrastate commerce, significant business that is limited to the borders of a unmarried state.

If your business can't nonetheless evidence you are using the trademark in commerce, or if you lot won't be able to prove information technology within the confines of the ICU process, at that place is no reason to apply for the trademark offset.

If I register a concern proper noun, practice I need to register a trademark?

Registering a concern name is typically done at the state level and does not provide federal protection. If you are simply going to provide services or products within that state, there is no reason to register for a trademark. If you are offer products and services in multiple states and want federal protection for the proper name of your business, though, you would demand to register for a trademark.

How can you lot tell if someone else already has rights to a marking?

TESS makes it easy to search the federal database of trademarks in various ways. The "basic word mark search" allows you to search names, words and phrases that accept received a federal trademark.

The "word and/or design mark search" allows you lot to employ either a design or words or a combination of the ii to search the database. Even so, you will probable demand to know the pattern codes to do this effectively.

There is besides the selection to browse the directory or individual fields inside the database. If you aren't certain exactly what might take been trademarked only you know a general date, you lot can search past registration or publication appointment.

If your registration is accepted, how long is that registration valid?

A trademark registration is valid for as long as yous are willing to maintain it. Once a trademark is issued, information technology does not expire as long as it remains in use for the registered purpose. Y'all run into, a trademark does non grant you ownership of the word, phrase or image; information technology gives you the right to that give-and-take, phrase or paradigm every bit it is used to identify the services or goods listed in the registration.

However, using it isn't quite enough. Yous must give the USPTO proof that the trademark has remained in use by filing a Section viii declaration betwixt the fifth and sixth anniversary of the registration. This is a unproblematic sworn statement.

Upon the registration's tenth anniversary, actual proof is required. This can be an image of your product or service using the trademark. Yous must do this every x years.