Company names and how to protect them legally

Company names, product names and business names are obviously extremely important. By owning your company name you can legally stop others using it but how should you go about protecting your company name legally?

Registering company names at Companies House, whilst useful, does not give you the exclusive right to use the name as a business name. All it does is to stop someone else registering exactly the same company name as the name of their company. It does not stop someone using your company name as a trademark for their product or service. It is not sufficient to register company names at Companies House or even to register a name as internet domains and hope for the best.

If you want to make sure that any company names that you use cannot be taken or used by anyone else, you need to protect them as registered trademarks by way of trademark registration. In this way you will get the exclusive right to use your company names in relation to any the goods and/or services for which it is registered.

The Company Names Tribunal has power to adjudicate to stop the opportunistic registration of company names. For example, if someone tries to register a company name that uses a trademark or product name that belongs to you, a company names adjudicator can prevent that person from incorporating a company (or a limited liability partnership) under your name. Conversely, if you try and incorporate a company that is too close to a name that someone else has protected by trademark registration, you could be forced to abandon that name.

The important point to remember is that company names can only really be leally protected as registered trademarks and it is foolhardy to rely simply on registration of a company name at Companies House or registration as a domain name. These have very little legal power and if you do not protect your company names as trade marks you may find that, at some point, you will have to stop using them and re-brand your business.

For more information on how to protect company names please contact us and one of our legal team will advise you on your specific requirements. Each business is different and it is important to get proper advice in order to get the broadest protection. We can also run some free availability searches on any company names that you are interested in to make sure that they are legally available. We are one of the leading trade mark firms in the UK. We will be pleased to help you.

So what would you like to do next...

	GET FREE LEGAL ADVICE ...talk to a trademark expert right now on company names and how to protect them legally and any aspect of trademark registration. Our legal advisory and search service is free!
	GET A FREE TRADEMARK SEARCH ...discover if your trademark, name or slogan is legally available. Get a Free Trademark Search right now. Your trademark searches are carried out and reviewed by legal experts.
	GET A FREE TRADEMARK AVAILABILITY REPORT   ...get a Free Report on the legal availability of your trademark BEFORE you commit ...from our experts.
	REGISTER A TRADEMARK When you are satisfied that your chosen trademark is legally available we will handle the whole trademark registration process for you. We will draft the best trademark specification for your business, deal with all Registry queries and conduct any necessary Registry hearings. FIXED FEES ..NO hidden costs!

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