What to do when my business name is already taken online?
I am starting an online business. When I searched the internet my business name I got another company’s website that had the same name. I searched the U.S patent and trademark database and it was not registered through them. What do I do next?
1. change your name, make it more unique or you will be fighting keywords to get your site listed above his, specially since he already has the name, and most likely has it as a keyword.
2. alter the name with a – or shorten company to co, etc.
If they have the name first, even if not registered, by law it is theirs. Great example of this is www.Nissan.com, instead of being bullied, the guy stood up. Cause in patent office there is a law called " first right " meaning who ever can prove use of the name first, even w/o patent, copyright, or trademark, it is legally their name.
The few biz’s I have owned and own, I always pick out the dot com first, as that is now the main marketing item. Then I back track and put the name, logo, etc into all the rest. If a dot com is taken, I move on with another name.
add another word to it
you change your name online
It doesn’t matter if there was no trademark registered. not much you can do about it. check out www.nissan.com – nissan can’t do s**t about it. the guy registered the domain name first. nissan is suing the guy but the site is still online. anyway, yes just change the name a little bit or something…