3 Reasons to Trademark Your Business Name

For many entrepreneurs, the idea of a trademark can seem a little bit like a luxury. Why would any company really need a trademark? After all, your company didn’t invent Coke or Frosted Flakes. You’re not putting a swoosh on athletic shoes or building a famous sports car.

The truth is trademark protection isn’t just for gigantic corporations. The purpose of a mark is to help you uniquely identify your company, product or service in the marketplace and to prevent your competitors from confusing your customer base and possibly luring them away with an inauthentic substitute. If you are building value in a new company, and you are ready to add to your intellectual property portfolio and stake your claim to your rightful piece of the market by trademarking your business name, here are some things to consider.

A Trademark is an Asset

The purpose of intellectual property law is to grant you and your company a monopoly in exchange for your creative energy and productive effort. In copyright and patent law, the benefits to society are fairly obvious.

A trademark on the other hand, doesn’t necessarily accrue benefits for society. What it does do, however, is enhance your business in ways that do benefit society, often by adding value to previously invented works protected by copyright or patents. In the case of a business name trademark, these benefits apply across your entire company’s asset base, which strengthens everything you produce, not just your IP.

Trademarks Attract New Business 

When you register a trademark, you send an unmistakable signal to not only your customers, but the market in general. You make it clear by claiming a trademark you are in business for the long haul, and you intend to create a brand customers can trust. This can have tremendous benefits born out of the confidence you inspire by your orderly and ambitious approach to your company identity. Customers and future investors and shareholders look to steps like a trademark registration as part of a pattern. It indicates you intend to grow and you intend to make that trademark more valuable.

Trademarks Protect your Business 

Without the protection of a registered and perfected trademark, you run the risk of a company with a similar name or similar service mark or logo confusing your customers and infringing on the good will and trust you have not only established but paid for with months or years of marketing and careful management. You can’t afford to allow this to happen, as it will dilute your brand and make things more difficult in the future. You will also want to avoid a hostile company creating a confusing mark and then attempting to enforce it against you, as that could not only damage but destroy your company.

Intellectual property is one of the key assets of any enterprise. Make certain you manage your portfolio well in order to preserve your company and enhance the value of what you’ve spent so much time and effort building.

Leave a comment

(*) Required, Your email will not be published