Your company’s legal name and its trade name typically are not precisely the same thing as its mark.
Consider the word mark FORD that appears on goods (e.g., cars & trucks) made by Ford Motor Company. The company name or “trade name” distinguishes Ford Motor Company from other companies, but the FORD mark distinguishes the cars & trucks of that source from those provided by other companies.
A company name appears on the “front door” of the company’s facilities or in legal documents for that company, while the mark appears on that company’s goods or in advertising of its services. Often, for the benefit of consumers, it’s much easier to use the shortened version as a mark (e.g., FORD), and doing so allows anyone to distinguish between the mark and the company as a whole.
Securing a company name can be relatively easy. Typically, so long as no one else has registered that precise company name in your state, you are free to register that name with your state’s central authority (called the “State Corporation Commission” or “SCC” in my home state of Virginia, and often the “Secretary of State” in other states).
But registering your company name in your state does not secure protection for your mark (even if that mark is very similar to your company’s name). Although the benefits often far outweigh the costs, obtaining federal registration for a mark is a different and more complex process, and has its own hurdles to success. Any federal registration application must identify not only the mark, but also a description of the goods/services that the mark is or will be used with, and the general “class(es)” in which those goods/services fall. The application also must assert whether the mark is already in use with those goods/services, or whether the applicant merely has an intent to use the mark with them in the future.
Note that registering your company name with a state does not ensure that your use of a mark won’t infringe another company’s rights in the same or a similar mark – regardless of the state of operation.
If another company has obtained federal registration of the mark, it has enforcement rights that reach nationally. Unless your use of the mark pre-dates the other company’s registration application’s filing date, you could find yourself facing a trademark dispute.Though certainly no guarantee, a clearance (or “knock-out”) search performed in the early stages of mark development can potentially save the expense and effort of rebranding because of a trademark dispute – not to mention the legal fees!