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 For many business owners, the name of their company, services or products has significant personal meaning. For others, it's merely a means to what they hope will be a profitable end. No matter how emotionally attached you are to a name, you should strongly consider registering your name as a trademark to enhance the value of your services and products and protect your business and marketing strategies. If you coin a creative name that becomes successful, you should expect competitors to attempt to capitalize on your success. Imitation might be the greatest form of flattery, but in business, it is not the greatest form of maximizing profits.
Trademark names receive a national protection from the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Once you file your trademark name or trademark logo, your name or logo receives national trademark protection. That can help insulate your business from competitors who might want to open an identically named business or sell a product or service with the same name. Trademark names also carry marketing value for businesses that want customers to identify a specific service or product with only their business. Because of the marketing investment required to attract customers, many business owners might decide it is worthwhile to trademark a name of a company, service or product.
If you have decided that you want to trademark a name, you should consider the different types of trademark names that exist to ensure that your trademark name application has a good chance of receiving approval from USPTO. The primary types of trademark names are arbitrary, fanciful, suggestive and descriptive trademarks. If you want to know how to trademark name a company, service or product so that you receive the most protection possible from USPTO, you need to understand the differences among those types of trademark names. Our trademark attorney can help you determine how trademark names that you have already chosen qualify and whether you should reconsider a trademark name before filing an application with USPTO.
Fanciful and arbitrary trademarks are often the easiest trademark names to pursue, however, they tend to provide little inherent marketing value. That means that the name of the company, service or product doesn't have a strong correlation to the industry of that service or product. For example, "Apple Computer" is an arbitrary trademark name because apples have very little to do with computers. Apple doesn't describe any qualities about the computers that the company sells. Therefore, the name doesn't provide much marketing information for a consumer who might try to make a decision based solely on the name of a product or service.
Fanciful trademark names are even less valuable to consumers because they are made up words that do not have meaning. "Xerox" epitomizes the class of fanciful trademark names. It previously had no meaning when the company started selling copiers. However, the company's success has propelled it into the dictionary because its trademark name is synonymous with the action of making duplicates using a copier. You might envision your company reaching such a level of fame. But if you're starting from scratch, a fanciful trademark name is a marketing risk because it offers no inherent marketing value. On the other hand, it stands an excellent chance of receiving broad protection from USPTO.
Before discussing descriptive and suggestive trademarks, it is worthwhile to note that although fanciful and arbitrary trademark names are easier to file with USPTO, you need to search thoroughly for companies that are already using those names. Because USPTO is likely to grant you broad protection for such trademark names, it likewise will protect existing companies that use those names, including companies that the agency decides hold common law trademarks. Our trademark attorney can help you scour the world of trademark names to find anyone who has already tried to trademark a name that is similar or identical to your trademark name.
If you want to trademark a name that is likely to offer greater marketing value, descriptive or suggestive trademark names could be the way to go. However, you increase your risk of encountering resistance from USPTO with these types of trademark names. Suggestive trademark names are very common because they tend to combine words that reflect the product or service for sale. For example, "Sprint Nextel" suggests quick telecommunications services for customers. If a restaurant trademarked a product named "Volcano Burger," customers would have a reasonable expectation that the burger would be quite spicy. The trademark name is intended to highlight desirable qualities of products or services. Trademark names that use suggestive names often are not unique. Therefore, you would be wise to conduct a thorough trademark search to look for local, regional and national businesses that use similar names -- whether they are trademark names or not.
As you can tell, choosing how to trademark name a company, product or service can be more difficult that simply finding something catchy. For any business interested in trying to trademark a name, the different types of trademark names is a critical factor to consider. You need to balance marketing needs vs. the ease of filing a trademark application. Out trademark attorney has the resources available to help busy business owners wade through the details of trademark names and advise a sound course of action.
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