What is in a name?

When Apple developed its first laptop computer in 1989, they called it the Macintosh Portable. Sales were less than stellar.

After a redesign, Apple rechristened the Portable as the PowerBook, and sales took off. There are many reasons why the PowerBook was more successful than the Portable, but the improved name shouldn’t be left off the list.

Naming your business or product can be important to its success. You should make sure to do it right. That’s where trademark law comes into play.

Names that are fanciful or arbitrary—like Exxon for an oil company or Apple for computers—get the greatest degree of protection under the law. On the other hand, purely descriptive names, like Atlanta House Painters, are entitled to little or no protection at all.

The first to use a name for a product or service has superior rights to subsequent users, even if the first user never applied for a formal trademark registration. So before you select the name for your business or product, you may want to check to make sure someone isn’t already using that name or a similar one for related products or services.

Checking isn’t as simple as typing the name you want to use into Google and seeing what comes up, although that may be a good place to start. You may want to have a lawyer conduct a comprehensive trademark search and analyze the results. These searches are conducted by specialized search firms that have access to databases of company names, federal and state trademark registries, press releases, business publications, and domain names, as well as many other sources. A lawyer is often needed to analyze the results.

You may never intend to apply for a trademark registration, but you want to avoid investing your blood, sweat, tears, and money in building your brand only to be forced to change it after someone claims you are infringing on their rights.