Protecting a business name before trademarking

Mr Moxie

I have started a new business, I have a partner, we have registered a business name which will be the main business and in time we hope to have several small businesses trading under their own names. For now we will be trading under a different name relating to the product we are producing.

For example: Example Enterprises trading as Sample

My question is relating to the best way to protect the product name, which we will be trading as?
We don't have our proper branding in place yet and probably won't for a while, so can't go through the trademark process, do I just hope nobody tries to use it until I trademark it?
In the meantime, whats the best way to secure the name we are trading under so nobody else can use it?? My partner has suggested registering it as a separate company from the main company..?

Thanks in advance

Fogra

You can register your business name with www.cro.ie

Mr Moxie

Fogra wrote: »

You can register your business name with www.cro.ie

Thank you for your reply.
I have registered the business name, lets call it Abiz for example.
We are selling products called Bbiz for example, but we dont use the Abiz name to sell Bbiz we use the Bbiz name as it is the product name.
How do I protect Bbiz prior to trademarking it.
There is no point in trademarking the name until it is properly branded, and at the moment I am just using a particular font that I like and 2 colours that work well together, this font and colour scheme will also be used when it is properly branded with a logo etc.

Thoughts please?

antoinolachtnai

You can register the name without the graphics. This is generally what is done.

See for example the entry for Guinness in the Irish Trademarks database.

http://www.patentsoffice.ie/eregister/Query/TMQuery.aspx

You will see entries for graphics and for text.

Registering the company name will not really give you much protection.

There are a lot of if's and but's with this. If this is a major concern, you really need to get professional advice.

Mr Moxie

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

You can register the name without the graphics. This is generally what is done.

See for example the entry for Guinness in the Irish Trademarks database.

http://www.patentsoffice.ie/eregister/Query/TMQuery.aspx

You will see entries for graphics and for text.

Registering the company name will not really give you much protection.

There are a lot of if's and but's with this. If this is a major concern, you really need to get professional advice.

Thank you very much indeed, I know what I need to do.

antoinolachtnai

Just to clarify, when I said that registering the company name will not give protection, I meant registering a company in the name you want to protect.