business-registration, trademark, domain-nameI have registered an assumed business name, lets call it ArtHouse. After looking around online I found a website hosted in Illinois with the domain arthouse.com and has a logo ArtHouse®. After searching in the US database for registered business names, there were no records for another ArtHouse being filed. When I found the website, I then looked up the Trademark and found that the registered trademark is in fact active. Is it legal for this company to be operating under an unregistered business name? If they are 100% in legal ownership of the hypothetical name “ArtHouse”, I would be willing to change my business name to something like ArtHousePDX or something else similar but I am wondering if the missing registration will affect anything in my favor.
If they already have an active, registered trademark, you should pick a totally different name. Remember the "McDowell's" fast food restaurant in the movie Coming to America? Reasons for changing your name:
You don't want to have to deal with a potential infringement case. Just adding "PDX" to the end of their trademark isn't much different. If you were them, how would you feel if someone took your name and added a suffix? They got it first, whether or not you found a corresponding registered business name doesn't change the fact that they have a trademark on the name.
It is much easier now to pick a unique name rather than have to change it later when you are more established. Think about getting another fictitious business name, register that, and transition to the new name. You'll avoid a lot of potential headache down the road.
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