Setting up your family business correctly increases the chances you’ll to hit the ground running and prevent major issues from popping up down the road. One of the first tasks you’ll want to accomplish is choosing the name of your business.
From selecting a legal name for your business to reserving your domain name to registering your trademark, picking the right name so you can start to develop your brand is important to the success of your business. It should be one of the first things you and your partners do when starting a new enterprise.
Choose a Legal or Fictitious Name to Brand Your Business
Most states’ laws require you to pick a legal name for your business. The legal name is the official name you’ll file with the Secretary of State, use to request permits and licenses from public agencies, and report to the state and federal taxing authorities.
Your company is not required to use its legal name in its day-to-day business practices. You can use a trade name if you wish. A company using a trade name is usually referred to as “doing business as” – commonly referred to as “DBA” – and then insert the “trade name” here. There are several reasons why you might choose to use a DBA. Perhaps you want to make it difficult for the general public to locate your articles of incorporation or other business documents filed with public agencies. Perhaps you incorporated in a state with a law prohibiting two companies incorporated in the state from using the same name regardless of the form of business entity created. Such a law could force you to pick a legal name other than the one you would like to operate under. Choosing to use a DBA will allow you to operate under the name you desire.
At the end of the day, it’s important for you and your partners to know that a DBA gives you flexibility when choosing a public name for your new business.
Claim Your Presence on the Internet Once
In today’s business world, a strong Internet presence is crucial to commercial success. This means your business should have a well-designed website and social media profiles. No matter how professional or attractive your website is or how active and authoritative your social media profiles are, it will be for naught if no one can find you.
It’s important to reserve your domain name and social media handles as soon as you’ve decided on a name. Also set up a Google Business Profile for your business, which will provide an opportunity to showcase your business’ unique value proposition when someone searches for your company in Google by name. It’s hard and expensive to change domain names, social media handles and Google’s index without taking significant steps backward to reestablish your business’ online presence.
Try to avoid it at all costs.
The challenges posed by getting it wrong make it even more important that you select a business name that complies with all legal requirements from the beginning. Ensuring you don’t have to change your company’s name because of a conflict or misconstrued legal requirement – as well as avoid changing your domain name and social media handles – will help you avoid wasting time and money rebooting your company’s business name on the most widely available free media service the world have ever known: The Internet.
Register Your Trademark So You Can Market Nationwide
One of the most important considerations when choosing your business’ name is making sure the name can be registered as a trademark with the U.S. Trademark Office and does not infringe on anyone else’s trademark rights. In Finkel Law Group’s years of trademark practice, we’ve found a wide variety of issues that arise when trademarking a business name, of which a partial list of examples follow
- The business owner(s) choose a generic, commonplace, personal or geographic location for their name, which results in the Trademark Office rejecting the application.
- The business mistakenly uses another company’s or individual’s trademark. If the business’ application is actually processed through the Trademark Office, the party with the prior registration can force the business to change its name and possibly seek monetary damages from the business for infringing on their trademark.
- The business intentionally uses another company’s name because they found that the other company hasn’t registered the name as a trademark. Refraining from doing so will likely help avoid future costly legal disputes when the other company becomes aware of the infringement.
If you’ve already begun to acquire customers, changing your name can deal a significant and expensive blow to your branding efforts and consumer goodwill.
While it’s possible for you to conduct a search of the U.S. Trademark Office’s database of registered trademarks before branding your business’ name, it’s strongly advised that you hire an experienced trademark attorney who is familiar with trademark law and the procedures that must be followed to successfully prosecute a trademark application through the U.S. Trademark Office.
A seasoned trademark lawyer can conduct the trademark search more accurately and efficiently than you or a less experienced lawyer may and would discover existing trademarks that may block your ability to register your mark that may otherwise remain hidden until it’s too late.
While identifying registered trademarks is an important step to ensure you don’t infringe on another persons’ rights, your company still has legal rights in its name from simply using it on good and services sold in the particular market where it operates. It’s not nearly as good as federal registration of a trademark, but it provides you with some common law rights in the actual markets where you operate.
Contact Finkel Law Group
Finkel Law Group, with offices in San Francisco and Oakland, has more than 25 years of experience helping clients form new business enterprises, navigating registration of their trademarks through the U.S. Trademark Office, licensing those trademarks for commercial gain, and enforcing trademark rights in administrative proceedings before the TTAB and in federal and state courts.
When you need intelligent, insightful, conscientious and cost-effective legal counsel to assist you in understanding new laws that may affect your company’s business and intellectual property rights, please contact us at (415) 252-9600, (510) 344-6601, or info@finkellawgroup.com to speak with one of our attorneys about your matter.