Home – New Forums Starting your journey If my business logo includes my business’ name, do I have to trademark my business name separately? Reply To: If my business logo includes my business’ name, do I have to trademark my business name separately?

#1198234
molly1717
Member
  • Total posts: 24
Up
0
::

Thanks [USER=20176]@JacquiPryor[/USER] that’s a great insight and totally makes sense! I think the safest bet now is to register both logo and name! Appreciate the help :)

JacquiPryor, post: 234269, member: 20176 wrote:
Hi Molly,

Do you ‘have’ to? No – trademark registration is not a legal requirement.

Should you? Yes!
(assuming both the name and logo are individually registrable).

If you register a trademark you are entitled to promote that trademark to be a registered trademark when it’s used on the relevant products/services you’ve selected. We recommend to clients they register names and logos separately to ensure you have the right to promote both as registered marks (so, when the name appears on its own, you can also say it is a registered trademark).

Whilst every business and case as different, having your name registered separately to the full logo that includes the name could also offer a stronger position if you felt someone was infringing your rights.

For example – if your name was ABC and you registered a logo that included this name for certain goods/services, and someone else used ABCD in their own distinctive logo (for similar goods/services) they might have an argument that their overall mark is quite different to yours; however, if you also had ABC registered as a word mark, then, if someone else included this in their name/logo your ability to stop them might be stronger as you could argue their name/logo is incorporating the exact trademark you’ve registered.

(Obviously that’s just an example, and, as noted each case is different but I hope that provides some food for thought in answer to your question :))