Here is your FREE LEGAL TIP OF THE DAY: Be sure to conduct a full Trademark Search BEFORE you develop your new brand, name or tagline.
If you have a unique business name or tagline that you would be HEARTBROKEN if someone else got a hold of, you would be wise to trademark it. Trademarking gives you full legal ownership rights to your name for 10 years. (Yes, 10 years!)
So, let’s say that you have a business name or tagline that you are totally in love with and you want to create your whole business or program around it. BEFORE you dive in too far, the FIRST thing you want to do is do a full Trademark Search.
Why?
So that you can make sure someone else hasn’t trademarked your name first before you create your new website around it, develop a new program, or spend a lot of time and money on something that you have to later undo.
Here’s an example: Unfortunately this week, one of my clients just found this out the hard way…(true story).
My client spent the past few months (and thousands of dollars) working with an amazing brand strategist to rebrand her company.
She was so freaking excited about her concept.
She hired a website designer and started building her new website.
She started developing a bunch of programs around the name.
Basically, she went full out to develop her new brand – heart, soul and pocketbook.
She knew she was sitting on a gold mine with this name so she contacted me to find out how she could trademark it.
I worked with her to do a full Trademark Search and when I saw the results my heart just fell.
Someone else had already trademarked the EXACT same name. Oddly, however, they hadn’t purchased the name as a URL, so when she bought the URL a few months ago, she thought the name must have been “free and clear” because the URL hadn’t been taken. But, it wasn’t.
So she had to start completely over and come up with an entirely new concept.
Not fun. Heartbreaking. And expensive.
Soooooo, THIS TIME we ran 2 Trademark Searches for potential names and taglines BEFORE she went back to the branding strategist to help her flesh it all out.
A difficult lesson learned, for sure – but now she can breathe a sigh of relief that the name hasn’t been taken before she creates everything.
You can bet that she now wants me to prepare her Trademark Application – which we will be doing ASAP. J
If you want to learn more about How to Trademark Your Fab Biz Name or Tagline, I will be holding a Free Legal Training coming soon in April to teach you how trademark, why you need it, and which parts of the process you can do yourself to save $$$ – so stay tuned for details!
(And, I am excited to share that just a few days ago I was informed that my OWN Trademark application has been granted for Legal Coach® – very exciting!)
But for now, just remember…
