I am getting shirts and bussiness cards that say ***** county wholesalers. There are many people at me REI club meetings and feel this is a good way to market to them. I will also mail the cards to the owners of vacant homes. I just don’t want anyone to steal the name from me. How do I avoid this?
Get a DBA for your name. Your name is generic, have a graphic designer draw up some logos using the words of your company’s name, you might have a better chance at trademarking that. But before you worry about protecting a generic name, check the state records to see if there is already a corporation or LLC with this name. I’d try to avoid getting a trademark on such a name, especially if I were only operating county-wide. Patent, trademark and copyright attorneys are expensive and it’s a long, detailed process. It’s easier to fool potential imitators by putting a little TM next to the name (Don’t use a circled “R”!) than it is to register a trademark.
go to your corporations division on your states website.
look up names of business.
forget about a DBA
and if you’re going to do this - you’d better have a plan in place so that a month or two from now, when you don’t want to do wholesaling, you’re stuck with a name and a loss of money to incorporate.
anyway.
the ™ is used mainly for logos or sayings like
I’m Lovin’ It™
or
Where Do You Want To Go Today™
it can be used for names of businesses or entities owned such as
REICLUB.COM™
the little R (forget the code for this on the keyboard) is used for Registered Companies.
this is a federal registration.
at a state level,
if you choose Bucks County Wholesalers - if an LLC - or Corp - you’ll have to include that like
Bucks County Wholesalers LLC, or Limited Liability Company or if Corp - Inc. Ltd. Corporation, Incorporated, Corp, CORP.
at a state level, your business entity will be secured by respective state. this is not a federal registry. and really, unless it’s some unbelievably FANTASTIC name that you thought of, Registering it is really not necessary. no one will “steal” your name.
you can also, alternatively, if you register as a foreign entity in another state to do business their, you’ll register through that state’s corporations division.
<<…the little R (forget the code for this on the keyboard) is used for Registered Companies.>>
Do you mean this one, TMCG? ®…LOL
It’s (R) in MS Word and it will usually do that…(there’s a software choice in MS Word to do that if it doesn’t…)
Keith