Do I Need to Trademark My Business Name? (2023)
Overview:
What is a trademark?
What does a trademark protect?
How does a trademark work?
What can you trademark?
How do you register a trademark?
A trademark is an intellectual property right to the use and protection of a distinguishing identification of goods or services in the course of business and commerce. A trademark prevents the confusingly similar use of your trademark by another person.
You can trademark a name, a logo, a sound, certain packaging designs, and even a smell! You can register a trademark at a state level and at the federal level through the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
What is a trademark? What does a trademark protect?
A trademark is an intellectual property right that is recognized by federal and state law. Under the federal Lanham Act, a trademark is defined in part as something that protects your use of a “word, name, symbol, or device, or any combination thereof…to identify and distinguish [your] goods from those manufactured or sold by others and to indicate the source of the goods”. 15 U.S.C. § 1127. Technically, a trademark applies to goods and a service mark applies to services, but for the purpose of this article, I refer to all types of marks collectively as trademarks.
You do not need to register your trademark in order to have some trademark rights but I nearly always recommend you formally register your trademark in order to provide the broadest protection. This is because you actually begin accruing common law trademark intellectual property rights as soon as you begin to use your trademark publicly in commerce, and this includes before you officially register your trademark at the state and federal level. However, registration is essential to giving your trademark the broadest protection and rights.
Looking for how to start a Utah LLC? See my Starting a Utah LLC (2023) guide.
How does a trademark work?
A trademark works by giving you the right to exclude the use by others of a mark that is confusingly similar to your trademark. When you use and register a trademark and another person begins using a mark that is likely to cause confusion with your trademark, you can demand that they stop using the mark and you can take legal action to force them to stop and to recover any damages and harm you may have experienced from the use of their mark.
A key element of a trademark is that it distinguishes and identifies your goods and services from others’ and it indicates the source of those goods and services. When you have trademark rights, you can use them to prevent others from using a mark that will leave consumers confused as to whose goods and services are whose.
What can you trademark?
You can trademark words, symbols, logos, smells, packaging designs, sounds, and combinations of the foregoing that meet the criteria of something that is used to distinguish and identify goods and services and their source.
That means you can potentially trademark your business name, the name of a product or product line, your logo, a sound that identifies your services or goods from others, or even special product packaging that is designed to identify your goods.
Should you trademark your logo? In most cases, probably yes! The cost of a trademark application in Utah is $50 and for a single class of goods/services TEAS Plus application $250 at the USPTO. Application fees vary depending on the type of application you use. You can file a trademark application yourself, however, I almost always recommend you work with a licensed attorney to help you. The application fees are not unreasonable, especially for the intellectual property right that you are helping to secure. Attorney fees and rates vary, but the initial cost upfront can be worth the significant protection your trademark receives.
How do you register a trademark?
You can register a trademark at the state and federal level. In Utah, you can register a Utah trademark through the Utah Division of Corporations & Commercial Code online trademark registration. On the federal level, you can register a trademark with through the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The trademark application process time varies depending on the volume of applications. At the federal level, you can generally expect your trademark application to be initially reviewed at least six months after you file (usually longer). You can check the USPTO processing times here.
Your trademark will usually not be registered if it is confusingly similar with another person’s trademark. Before you register a trademark, you should perform a trademark search where you investigate whether there are other similar marks that are too similar to yours and potentially confusing to consumers. A trademark search can be a very technical and comprehensive process. I almost always recommend that someone works with a lawyer to ensure that a complete and comprehensive trademark search has been performed prior to filing a trademark application, and even before a business name, logo, etc., has been chosen.
You can learn more about performing a Utah Business Entity Search from my guide on How To Perform a Utah Business Entity Search (2023).
Looking for a Utah Trademark Attorney?
For a flat rate of $1,000, I will perform a comprehensive trademark search and file your trademark application with the USPTO. $1,000 does not include the USPTO filing fee (for example, the TEAS Plus filing fee is $250 at the time of this article).
