When you have been looking for a desired company name, chances are you would come across two main things. These things should be kept in mind along with the legality of the available name along with its commercial usage. When talking about the legality of your company name, you should have consultation with your local attorneys, as every nation and region has its own laws with respect to choosing company names. Few laws would be renowned globally, while most would be applied only on local scale. For instance, you would not be able to make use of the word ‘bank’, when choosing a company name, as your company is not a financial institution.
However, the legal ramifications of choosing a company name would largely depend on the nation, local government or the prevalent culture. The commercial usage of your company name might not be able to deal with the law, unless you do something within the ambit of law. Rather than dealing with advertising and marketing strategies, how you intend to make use of that name, in order to enhance your clients and your sales, you should do something within the legal aspect.
How to choose the best company name
Foremost, you should be aware of the difference between business laws, copyright laws and trademark laws. To cut the long story short, trademark laws have been known to protect your logo, name and slogan. On the other hand, copyright laws would be able to protect your work, whereas, business laws have been known to protect your business identity along with the business itself. However, none of these laws would be a suitable guarantee offering exclusivity to your company name. However, you could enhance your chances by being alert and the first to choose a suitable and unique name for your company.
Protecting the name and identity of the company
Company name has more or less similar rights as personal name has. You would not be able to claim exclusive usage of your own name. In addition, you would not be able to force other people for not making use of that specific name. However, you and your company have rights in order to protect the identity. To be precise, if another business has been deliberately confusing people and as a result, you have been losing customers due to that company, you have the option of protecting your name along with your identity.
On the contrary, if your company name were the same as that of another company in different country or city, there would be no way, whereby your business would be affected by the other company having similar name as that of yours. Therefore, you would not have any right whatsoever to claim exclusive usage of that specific name.
Establishing your company name
The foremost method is to choose your own name as a business name. The second method would be to register the name with the DBA, which offers you the right to use signatures and bank accounts. The third method would be registering your corporate structure. However, in either scenario, you have to check if company name is available beforehand.
Author Bio: Craig Neymaar has been a lawyer for more than ten years now. A lot of his write-ups online are focused on the best approaches in choosing a business name.
