Here's another commonly asked question: "Does my trademark need to match my company name?" or "Do I have to have a company name that's the same as my trademark?" People tend to believe that they must establish ownership of a company or an LLC before trademarking, and I’m going to dispel this common myth. 

Let me introduce myself! I'm Andrei Mincov. I'm the founder of Trademark Factory, and I’m excited to talk to you about why you shouldn’t wait any longer to register a valuable trademark for your brand.

Let’s answer your question about whether or not your trademark must match your company name or business name: absolutely not! I'm going to give you a couple of examples that will make it really easy to understand and remember why. Example number one: "Just Do It.” This is a very valuable trademark, but guess what? It’s owned by Nike. Nike did not have to start a separate company called "Just Do It Inc" to own the Just Do It trademark. (It would be pretty funny if they did, though!) 

So, let’s get this straight. That means the owner of the trademark is Nike, while the trademark itself is Just Do It. There are a million other examples just like this one. Take, for example, the iPhone. iPhone is also not the name of the company; Apple owns the iPhone trademark. See how it works?  

Again, you can't register a company that incorporates the logo because company names are names and logos are images so trademarks are very different from company names—they don't have to match.

They can match, but they don't have to. To give you another example, Trademark Factory! The name of my business is Trademark Factory International Inc. That's the full legal name, but the trademark that we own is Trademark Factory. 

There is a partial match, sure. It wasn’t intentional, and it doesn't have to be exact. Initially, when I came up with the idea of Trademark Factory, the name of the business was different. It was not named very creatively, to say the least! It was called Mincov Law Corporation, and we ran under that name until 2015.

I changed the name of the firm to Trademark Factory International Inc and now there is a partial match, however accidentally. There is no legal reason for your trademark to match your company name. You don't even have to have a company to have a trademark! Trademarks can be owned by individuals—by normal people like you and me. 

There's no reason why you should first get your company to get a trademark. If you want to own a brand, you go out there and register a trademark, and then you can license it to your business. You can sell it to your business even after you incorporate it.

So that's how this works! I hope this answers your question.