Verifying Name Availability
To avoid legal issues, verify your desired business name is available before registering it. Search state and federal databases to ensure no other business has claimed your name. Thoroughly checking protects you if someone later claims your name infringes their trademark.
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Verify name availability using your state’s business name checker. If "Big Al’s Balloons" exists in your state, you likely cannot register "Big Al’s Balloon Supplies." The process is normally free.
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Also verify name availability using the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s electronic search system. Failing to search trademarks risks infringement charges.
Choosing a Business Name
Besides ensuring availability, choose a name representing your brand and resonating with target customers. While changing your name later is possible, doing so can prove complicated and expensive. Initially establish an appropriate, memorable name distinguishing your business.
- You can use the online tool to search business names and find out whether another business is already using the name you have chosen. These details are issued at no cost.
Registering Your Business Name
The legal name of a business is the official name of the person or entity that owns a business.
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Conducting a DBA search is critical in ensuring your proposed business name isn’t already in use. If you’ve done your research and you don’t find any business name that might interfere with your future commercial activity, then you can use that name, register it, and protect it with a trademark.
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If approval of shareholders, partners, or LLC members is required, the resolution will need to be signed by a requisite number of shareholders, partners, or members.
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If you plan to use a name that’s different from your business’s legal name, you’ll need to register the name you want to use with a government agency.
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A business can opt to have their business name and trade name be the same. A trade name may also be called a doing business as (DBA) name.