Seattle Trademark Lawyer

Sometimes clients ask about trade name rights.

Trade names are formal company names. They can be registered with the Secretary of State, which will prevent another business in the same state from registering the identical name.

Beyond that, they’re not very useful. Indeed, business owners should forget about them when looking to protect their rights. They instead should focus on protecting their trademarks.

A trade name can certainly be a trademark. In fact, they often are. But it is the branding of goods and services with the name — and the reputation that follows — that creates trademark rights. The more a customer is exposed to a brand, the more rights that arise in the mark.

Registering a trademark is the best way to maximize one’s trademark rights. Registering a trade name hardly does anything.

For practical purposes, business owners can largely forget about trade name rights. Their place is on letterhead, business cards, contracts, and bank accounts. For example, Doctor’s Associates Inc. owns the SUBWAY brand. But the consuming public just knows the sandwich shops as SUBWAY. That’s the name that counts, and it’s the one Doctor’s Associates would rightly fight to protect.

Trade names serve their purpose, but they don’t do much in the realm of trademark law.

A client that obtained a federal trademark registration recently asked me a good, but basic question.

Now that I’m registered, when do I use the Circle-R symbol (®)? And when do I use “Inc.”?

Once a registration issues, the trademark owner should stop using the TM symbol if it has previously made such use and replace it with the Circle-R symbol. “TM” indicates the owner claims rights in the words or symbol that precedes the mark. The Circle-R symbol conveys the same message, except it indicates that the mark is registered. Both symbols warn would-be copycats to steer clear of the owner’s mark when adopting their own trademark. The message is that if they choose a mark that creates a likelihood of confusion with the owner’s prior mark, the prior owner will do what’s needed to protect its legal rights.

Both of those symbols focus on the owner’s trademark or brand name. That’s the device the owner uses to tell consumers that the good or service sold in connection with the brand comes from them.

That’s often the same as the business’ name, but the context is different. When referring to the formal business name (such as in a contract or when opening a checking account), one should refer to the appropriate corporate form. In other words, that’s when the owner should use “Inc.,” “Corp.,” “LLC,” or other abbreviation that is part of the company’s formal name.

To summarize, when communicating with consumers to indicate that goods or services come from you, use “TM” (an optional, but helpful symbol if the mark is not registered) or the Circle-R symbol (if the mark is federally registered). When referring to the company itself (often when communicating with other entities or employees), use the formal company name, which may include “Inc.,” “Corp.,” “LLC,” or the like.