How do you Trademark a Business Name | Trademark a Business

We’ve all heard you can trademark a business name but how do you go about doing and why? Check out this great article about trademarking your company name.

How do you Trademark a Business Name

It might be the most important decision you could ever make.  The decision to trademark your name, service, design or even architecture.  There’s an old saying “the one who makes it into the history books is not always the inventor but may well be the one with the lawyers who patents the invention.”

Daniel Drawbaugh, Elisha Gray and other claim to have invented the telephone, but it was Alexander Graham Bell who patented the invention.

One of the most important steps in securing the trademark for your business name is checking that no one else has already claimed your service or device or their idea is not confusingly similar.  Search to make sure someone does not have the same name and selling the same or similar product.  For example there is no problem using the name “United” but in different industries.  For example United Airlines and United Van Lines – same name different industries.  There would however, be a problem with securing a regional airway called Long Island United Air.

Our Brandings Strategy & Design team has developed a Comprehensive Brand Evaluation Report, CBER, for every brand in our inventory and screened the names across the International Classifications of Goods and Services and a preliminary evaluation assessing the classification of the goods and services available for use for each name.  Brandings has done the early footwork for you because we know how much work it is to start a new company or launch a new product.

As always, have if you have any questions or are interested in any of our packages feel free to contact a Brandings Client Service Team representative today at 1-800-852-8900 (international callers 1-310-246-5100).

In honor of the end of the school year and summer around the corner here are some of our Bright and Dazzling Company Names:

How to Trademark Your Business Name

By Denny Sugar

If you’ve got an idea, business plan and name all set up for your business, something you might also want to consider is getting a trademark for your name. Trademarks can be valuable in protecting your original idea and giving your business a distinctive edge by setting it apart from other traders.

Trademarks become a valuable piece of intellectual property that can consist of a word, symbol, color, sound or a name and can play a big role in advertising and selling it in the future. Here is a guideline for registering your company name.

1. Conduct a trademark search. The US Patent and Trademark Office maintain records of every registered trademark. Use the site’s Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) database to check if any other company has registered a similar trademark for a product or service in the same category as your business.

2. Register your trademark. Once you’ve established the eligibility of your trademark, you’ll then want to submit an online application. Applications generally cost between $275 and $325 and take up to six months to complete after submission. Registering your mark requires that you send in a detailed and complete description of categories of goods and services for which the mark will be used, date of the mark’s first commercial use and whether there’s a design component to the mark you’re registering.

3. Registering your trademark overseas. Federal registration is not recognized outside of the United States. However, if you have an issued trademark or a pending one, you can seek registration in any of the countries that have joined the Madrid Protocol. This is done with a single application to the International Bureau of the World Property Intellectual Organization, through the USPTO.

Once you have your trademark you are then free to use the federal registration symbol (the R inside of a circle” after your mark. As long as you continue to use the mark in association with the goods or services your business offers, the trademark should then be registered indefinitely.

– For more tips on how to start a business, please check out our site today. Copyright Denny Sugar 2009. For more information check out my small business startup blog written for hardcore entrepreneurs. Please feel free to publish or redistribute this article as long as it is not modified and all URL’s stay intact. Article Source: EzineArticles Expert = Denny Sugar

Update – In looking through this blog we feel that the author has left out some important information.  While we agree with everything that Denny Sugar has to say we wanted to as some great tips and information ourselves.

The first item about Trademarking that both of us missed was where to reach the US Patent and Trademark Office and that is USPTO.Gov.  This is the official site by the government, hence the .gov.  Now at this site there is plenty of information including all the info you’ll need to determine which Classification of Goods and Services you business, company, product or whatever fits into.

This is one of the most important things you must do.  As the example states above, more than one business can operate under the same name as long as they are not “Confusingly Similar” and that would be determined by Classification, so check that out.

The second item we missed out on and people are always wondering what do the TM stand for on all of our logos.  That TM is an initial claim to the logo or mark.  Now the difference between the TM and the R with a circle around it is that the R with the circle is the R with the circle has been registered with the USPTO.  Until you’ve determined which Classification of Good and Service you are going to be used in you can not register the mark.

If you have any questions about Trademarking a business please let me know by posting it below.