Usually yes, if you are using the name to sell goods or services and it is distinctive enough to identify you as the source. Registering an LLC does not give you trademark rights. The two are separate systems, and only one of them stops a competitor nationwide.
Two different registrations, two different jobs
When you formed your company, you registered a business name with the state. That filing tells the state which entity exists and stops another company from registering an identical entity name in that same state. It does almost nothing else.
A trademark is a different thing entirely. It protects the name you use in the marketplace to identify the source of your goods or services, and a federal registration gives you rights across all fifty states, whether or not you have ever done business there.
It is common to own one and not the other. Plenty of businesses have a state entity registration and no trademark rights worth relying on, and only discover the gap when someone else starts using their name.
Your name has to be distinctive enough
- The USPTO sorts names along a spectrum, and where yours falls determines whether it can register at all.
- Generic names cannot be registered by anyone. You cannot register BREAD for bread, no matter how long you have sold it.
- Descriptive names describe a feature, quality, or purpose of what you sell. CREAMY for yogurt, or FAST DELIVERY for a courier. These are refused on the Principal Register unless you can show the public has come to associate the term with you specifically, which generally takes five years of substantially exclusive use or strong evidence of consumer recognition.
- Suggestive names hint at a quality without describing it, and require a small mental leap. These register.
- Arbitrary names are real words used in an unrelated context. APPLE for computers.
- Fanciful names are invented. KODAK. XEROX. These are the strongest of all, and the easiest to protect.
The name also has to be available
Distinctiveness is only half of it. Your name also has to clear the marks already out there. The USPTO refuses applications where there is a likelihood of confusion with an earlier mark, and that test is broader than most people expect.
It is not limited to identical names. Similar spellings, similar sounds, and similar meanings all count, and the goods or services only need to be related rather than identical. A refusal can come from a mark you would never have thought to search for.
This is why a search before you file matters more than the filing itself.
What you are actually registering
Most businesses should register the name as a standard character mark, sometimes called a word mark. That covers the words themselves regardless of font, colour, or styling, which means the registration survives a rebrand of your visual identity.
You register the name in connection with specific goods and services, described in one or more international classes. The registration protects the name for what you listed, not for everything you might sell one day.
What registration actually gets you
- Nationwide priority for the goods and services you registered, dating from your filing date, in every state — including ones you have never sold in.
- A public record that appears in everyone else's clearance search, which prevents a good number of conflicts before they start.
- The right to use the registered symbol, which signals to competitors that the name is owned rather than merely used.
- A legal presumption that you own the mark and have the exclusive right to use it, which shifts the burden onto anyone who disputes it.
- A basis for enforcement on platforms that require registration, including Amazon Brand Registry and most marketplace and social media takedown processes.
- After five years of continuous use you can file for incontestability under Section 15, which forecloses several grounds on which the registration could otherwise be challenged.
What it costs and how long it takes
- The USPTO base filing fee is $350 per class of goods or services for a standard electronic application. Surcharges apply if the application is not clean — currently an additional amount where required information is missing, and a further amount per class if you write your own description of goods and services instead of using the USPTO's pre-approved wording from the ID Manual.
- That fee is identical whether you file yourself or an attorney files for you. What differs is what happens afterwards.
- Registration is not fast. Expect many months from filing to registration in a straightforward case, and longer if the application draws a refusal. That timeline is another reason to file earlier than feels necessary — your priority runs from the filing date, not from the day the certificate arrives.
- Our flat fee for trademark registration is $1,500, which includes the clearance search and the USPTO filing fee for one class.
Four mistakes worth avoiding
- Building the brand before clearing the name. Signage, packaging, and a domain are all cheaper to change before customers know them.
- Registering only the stylised logo. If the name is what customers say and type, the name needs its own registration.
- Describing your goods and services too narrowly, which leaves gaps, or too broadly, which draws refusals and cannot be fixed later — an identification can be narrowed but never broadened.
- Waiting for revenue. Priority follows the filing date. Every month you wait is a month someone else can file first.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to register my business name as a trademark?
No. Trademark rights can arise from use alone. But unregistered rights are limited to the geographic area where you actually operate, and they are considerably harder and more expensive to enforce. Federal registration gives you nationwide rights, a public record, and the right to use the registered symbol.
Can I trademark my personal name?
Sometimes. Marks that are primarily merely a surname are refused unless they have acquired distinctiveness. Full personal names used as brands can register, and if the name identifies a living individual you will need their written consent.
What if my name is already registered by someone else?
It depends on what they sell. Identical names can coexist where the goods and services are unrelated enough that no one would be confused. Where they overlap, you generally need a different name — and finding that out before you have printed signage is the entire point of a clearance search.
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This article is general information, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Rules differ by state and change over time. Please speak with a licensed attorney about your own situation.