Protecting Your Brand

Disclaimer: This is NOT legal advice.  It is based on our own experiences.

Over the first few years of developing a new business, you will spend thousands—even tens of thousands—of dollars developing a brand, buying signage, printing marketing and packaging. 

Before you start down that path, please make sure that your most valuable asset—your BRAND— is truly YOURS!!!

You’ve come up with the perfect name for your business or product. But can you use it?

Here is the criteria we use to determine if a potential brand name will fly.

A Google search.

What comes up? Are there other businesses with similar names that you’ll have to compete with in a search? 

If they’ve been around for a long time, are powerful brands, or if invest heavily in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) they will come up ahead of you in a search.

Does a search on the name you'd like to use land you on an offensive website? We once searched on a proposed brand name that sounded perfect for a line of children’s apparel. But the obvious .com website was about “how to get revenge on others”. Creative, but not the right vibe.

See if a good URL (a.k.a. domain name) is available. In our case, SaraNelson.com was available for a large sum of money. However, SaraNelsonDesign.com was available for a few dollars. We had to decide if the investment required for the shorter domain name made sense.

If the name you want is in use in another industry, adding a verb may provide you with a memorable—and available—domain name. Consider words like “Call”, “Drink”, “Trust” or “Buy”.

Register the .com. 

People reflexively type .com at the end of a URL, even when instructed otherwise.

While you’re there, consider registering obvious misspellings and the plural version too. 

In our case, we would attempt to get:

            SaraNelson.com (shortest logical URL)

            SaraNelsonDesign.com (name of the business)

            SarahNelsonDesign.com (alternative spelling of Sara)

            SaraNelsonDesigns.com (plural)

Do a search on USPTO.gov

This is  the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Find the TESS search option. Type in the name you are considering. A list of identical and similar names will appear. Click through each to see if they’re operating in your business category...

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You can find out more about design and marketing at saranelson.com.