Choosing a name you can grow with

You say a possible name aloud. Someone sketches it on a box. The domain is available, and the idea begins to feel real. Before you print anything, test the name for the one job a brand has: telling customers that this product comes from you and nobody else.

A trademark identifies the source of particular goods or services. It does not give you the word in general: you get rights in how the word is used with your goods or services, not the power to stop every use of it. 6 Identical marks can even be registered by different owners for unrelated goods, such as soap and ice cream bars. 5 So start by writing down, in one plain sentence, what you will sell under the name: "bicycle repair for my neighborhood" or "skin cream and lip balm". You will search against that sentence now and file against it later.

Easy to describe can be harder to distinguish

The USPTO sorts names by how strongly they point to one source: 2

• Fanciful: an invented word, like Exxon for petroleum.
• Arbitrary: a real word with no link to the product, like Apple for computers.
• Suggestive: a word that hints at a quality, like Coppertone for sun-tanning products.
• Descriptive: a word that merely describes the product, like "Creamy" for yogurt. It registers only in certain circumstances, for example after long, substantial use has made it distinctive.
• Generic: the name of the thing itself, like "Bagel shop" for a bagel shop. It is not a trademark at all and cannot be federally registered.

Aim for the first three. The stronger the mark, the more easily you can stop others from using it without your permission. 2

Imagine a fictional tea seller choosing between "Fine Loose Leaf Tea" and an invented word, "Brevella". The description needs no explaining, but competitors need those same words to describe their own tea, so you cannot keep them to yourself. The invented word needs packaging to explain it, and then it points only to you. You do not need a strange name: put a distinctive brand next to a plain description ("Brevella loose-leaf tea"), so the description tells customers what the product is and the brand tells them who made it.

Then test each candidate the way customers will meet it. Say it aloud and ask someone to spell it back. Check whether it means something else in the language of any market you plan to sell in. 2

Availability is more than an exact spelling

Two marks do not have to be identical to conflict. The USPTO asks whether they are similar in sound, appearance or meaning, or create a similar commercial impression, and whether the goods or services are related: identical, competitive, used together, sold to the same buyers or by the same retailer. "T. Markey" and "Tee Marquee" are spelled differently and sound the same. 5

Picture a name one letter away from an established local service. A spelling search looks clean, then a customer recommends it aloud and people end up at the other business. Search the way customers hear and remember the name, in this order: 3

1. Search federally registered and pending marks in the free USPTO trademark search system at tmsearch.uspto.gov. Try sound-alikes, alternate spellings and words with the same meaning, not only your exact spelling.
2. Search the state trademark and business registries; the USPTO keeps links for all 50 states, D.C. and Puerto Rico.
3. Search the internet with more than one search engine for anyone already using the name for related goods or services. A business can have rights from use alone in the area where it trades, without any registration, and the USPTO database will not show it. 1
4. If you plan to sell abroad, search WIPO's Global Brand Database, the Madrid Monitor and TMview as well.

An available domain or an accepted company name only tells you that the address or the entity name is free. Neither is a trademark clearance, and copyright does not protect business names, product names or domain names either. 7 Protection for the name comes from trademark law.

Do this search before you order signs and packaging, when switching to your second-choice name still costs nothing. Before you file or launch, have a U.S.-licensed trademark attorney run a full clearance search and interpret the results; a conflict found after launch costs you everything printed with the name and the reputation built on it. 3

A book makes the distinction especially visible

"Can I trademark my book?" can mean four different things, and each has a different answer:

• The text is covered by copyright from the moment you write it down (see You may already have copyright).
• The title of one book is not protected by copyright 7, and the USPTO refuses to register a title used only for a single creative work. One book counts as one work in every format, including abridged and unabridged versions. 4
• A series title can be registered once it identifies more than one work. You prove it with evidence of series use, such as photographs, screenshots or point-of-sale displays. Putting a book's title on mugs or T-shirts does not make it a series. 4
• A publisher's or author's brand is a brand name like any other: choose and search it the way this guide describes.

So do not answer "you mean copyright." Ask which of the four the person means. An author can rely on copyright for the story and plan a series name they will register once the second book is out.

Choose with a future audience in mind

Think about the next plausible chapter of the business. A name tied narrowly to one product starts to fit badly when the product line grows: "Tom's Candles" is awkward once you also sell soap. You do not need to predict every future market, only leave room to grow.

Reach matters too. Rights from use alone are limited to the areas where you actually use the mark; a federal registration covers the entire United States and its territories. 1 If you plan to sell beyond your town, choose a name you can register: a strong one, not descriptive or generic, and clear of related marks.

When a candidate survives all of this, write down three things: who will own the mark (you or your company), the exact mark (the words alone, or a logo), and the goods or services it will cover. Those are what the U.S. application asks for.