After you start your corporation or LLC, what comes next? Building a reputation in your market or industry can be challenging and frequently requires time to gain the trust of consumers. Registering a trademark can help you on your way to becoming an established and reputable company by giving you a jumpstart in name recognition.
The benefits of registering a trademark for your company name and/or product are twofold. First, trademark registration provides protection to the company you have worked so hard to create. All the time and energy spent making sure that you are the best you can be may be wasted if a similarly named company moves into your neighborhood and starts operating poorly. Consumers may then start confusing your company with theirs which is great for them, bad for you. Registering a trademark protects you from this scenario by deterring other entrepreneurs from using your company name and also provides a method of legal recourse for those situations when another company starts using your name anyway.
The second benefit of registering a trademark is to promote brand recognition. If you think of all the products and company names you encounter every day, many of those products are registered trademarks. “Branding” is vital to a company, especially for advertising and consumer recognition. Registered trademarks provide a national, and even sometimes international, license for use of your company and/or product name. This allows for uniform advertising on a national level that promotes name recognition anywhere you advertise. Consumers from California to New York that search for your product online or hear about your company will associate that name with your company only; a very valuable tool for increasing your company’s business.