Trademark & Branding Considerations in Selecting a Business Name or Product Name
If the name of your business or product describes the service your provide or the product you manufacture, it may become difficult to enforce your trademark rights against infringers. From a marketing or branding perspective, it may seem desirable to select a business name or product name that clearly communicates the services you provide or the products you offer. When selecting a name for your business or product, business owners must balance branding and trademark issues.
Briefly, the purpose of a trademark is to identify the source of goods or services and to avoid consumer confusion. Businesses can register for federal trademark protection through the United States Patent & Trademark Office and for state trademark protection through state governments. Federal trademark protection provides the trademark owner with nationwide rights and protections. One of the rights conveyed through federal trademark registration is the right to prevent others from using the same or similar mark to represent their products or services.
Consider Google. Until approximately ten years ago, google was a term known only to geeks and represents a 1 followed by 100 zeroes. Today, Google is the dominant player in web search and offers a diverse product line that includes email, web apps, advertising and tracking tools. From a branding perspective, it would have been much easier for Google’s founders to name their startup The Web Search Company or Internet Search Site. Those names would clearly inform the public of the services offered. However, those words also describe services offered by Yahoo! and Bing. By choosing a descriptive name for your brand or business, consumers may be confused as to which business is associated with your brand. Instead, by choosing the word google, the public must take an extra logical step to understand the services offered by Google. No one, ten years ago, readily associated the word google with an Internet search service.
When selecting a name for your business or product, do not rely exclusively on branding or marketing considerations, but also consider the trademark effects as well.