Trade mark basics for a new business

This guide explains the essentials that every founder should know before choosing a name. It is general information, not legal advice: for a name you’ll build a business on, an hour with a trade mark attorney is cheap insurance.

What a trade mark is

A trade mark is a sign, usually a name or a logo, that tells customers which business goods or services come from. Registering one gives you the exclusive right to use it for the goods and services you listed, in the territory of the register, and lets you stop others using the same or a confusingly similar sign for similar goods or services.

Three points catch people out:

• It’s territorial. An EU trade mark covers the 27 EU countries; it does nothing in the UK, Switzerland or the US. Each needs its own registration, or an international application through WIPO’s Madrid System that designates them.
• It’s limited to goods and services. Marks are registered in classes, from the Nice Classification’s 45 (34 for goods, 11 for services). The same word can belong to different owners in different trades: Dove soap and Dove chocolate coexist.
• Registration isn’t the only right. In many countries, using a name in trade gives some protection without registration (in the UK, the law of “passing off”; in the US, “common law” rights). An unregistered business that was there first can still cause you trouble.

Identical is the easy case; similar is the real one

A clash isn’t limited to identical names. Registers and courts ask whether the average customer might be confused, looking at how the names look, sound and what they mean, and how close the goods or services are. A name one letter away from a registered mark for power tools could clash with it if you sell power tools; for a bakery it probably wouldn’t.

That’s why synym’s trade mark lights only mean “no identical live mark in the US and EU registers”. They’re a quick way to rule out the obvious clashes, not a clearance search.

How to search properly

For each name you’re serious about:

1. Decide the classes. List what you’ll sell, and find the classes in the free Nice Classification or with your register’s class-finder tool. Software is class 9, software as a service 42, retail 35, restaurants 43, and so on.
2. Search the registers where you’ll trade. TMview searches the EU register and most national registers in Europe at once, including the UK and Switzerland. The USPTO has its own trademark search. WIPO’s Global Brand Database covers international registrations and many other countries.
3. Search for similar names, not just the same one. Try different spellings, the name with letters swapped or dropped, the separate words of a two-word name, and words that sound the same. Filter by your classes and related ones.
4. Check that what you find is alive. Expired, withdrawn and refused marks don’t count; pending applications do.
5. Search the market. Search engines, company registers, app stores and marketplaces, for unregistered businesses using the name in your trade.

If you find something close in a related class, that’s the moment to ask an attorney. Opposition proceedings and rebranding cost far more than advice.

Registering your own mark

Applying is simpler than most people expect, and you can do it yourself online. The office examines the application, publishes it so others can oppose it (usually for two or three months), and registers it if no one does. Registration typically lasts ten years and can be renewed indefinitely.

Official fees for filing online, as of October 2026 (check the office’s own page before you file, since fees change):

Register	First class	Further classes
European Union (EUIPO)	€850	€50 for the second, €150 each from the third
United States (USPTO)	$350 per class	$350 each, plus surcharges if you write your own description of the goods
United Kingdom (UKIPO)	£205	£60 each
Switzerland (IPI)	CHF 350, covering up to three classes	CHF 100 each from the fourth

Attorneys’ fees come on top if you use one. The US also requires proof of use in trade before it registers a mark, so you can apply on an “intent to use” basis but must later show the mark in use and pay a further fee.

Things to avoid

• Descriptive names, which offices refuse. Our guide to naming styles explains why invented and arbitrary words are easier to register.
• Using ® before registration. In many countries, including the UK, it is an offence to mark an unregistered name as registered. Use ™ (or nothing) until the certificate arrives.
• Waiting too long. In most registers the first to file wins, not the first to think of it. File once you’ve settled on the name, ideally before you announce it publicly.
• Letting it lapse. Mark the renewal date in your calendar, and use the mark: one that isn’t used for five years can be cancelled.

When you’ve chosen, our checklist of what to do next puts the filing in order with the domain and company registration.