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getting your brand name wrong can cost
you literally thousands if not it can
cost you a lot of money hi my name is
Jim Hardin the founding attorney here at
Hawthorne law where we help online
entrepreneurs to get their legal house
in order so that you can build something
that truly matters in the world
today we're talking about coming up with
an amazing name for that business
there's a lot at stake when you're
trying to come up with the right name
for your business because if you get
this wrong you can spend literally
thousands of dollars on marketing
materials websites social media brand
recognition all these things just to
find out later on that you've either
picked the wrong name or picked the name
that somebody else is already using or
picked a name that is not even capable
of being trademarked so you want to get
this right and today I want to talk to
you about the five main categories of
names that you can choose for your
business what are the best ones what are
the worst ones and how to pick the right
sweetspot
category that's gonna work for you so
that your business can be smooth sailin
later on when it comes time to trademark
the name of your brand and by the way
this also applies to product offerings
as well it's not just for brand names
it's also for the products and services
that you might be selling in your
business so let's take a minute and talk
about what a lot of people do when
they're naming a business for their
brand they basically just do a
brainstorm come up with something that
sounds good or maybe they have that
light bulb moment where they decide you
know what this is a name that's gonna
work for my business and I'm gonna go
with it and they do
and it normally doesn't work out quite
so well so when it comes time and and if
you missed my video last week you want
to go make sure you check this video
right here that talks about all the
mistakes that people make when coming up
with names for your online business but
today what I want to talk about are the
five best categories of names that you
can use when thinking about how you want
to trademark your business because
ultimately you do want to trademark your
business this is one of the best
investments you can make in your
business especially if you're thinking
that somewhere later on down the road
you want to sell your business of course
right now the guy outside decides he
wants to do two more thing isn't been
around all day now he comes out come on
dude
[Music]
whenever somebody comes to me with a
trademark idea I want to talk to them
about the five main categories of
trademarks so when you're coming up a
name for your trademark these five main
categories I'm gonna go through them
real quick and then we're gonna go
through them one at a time in a little
more detail so we've got fanciful
arbitrary suggestive descriptive and
generic those are the five categories of
names let's talk about them each one at
a time and then we'll talk about what
are the best names and one of the worst
names so let's talk about fanciful names
first fanciful names are basically
made-up names their names that were not
in the dictionary before you came up
with the name so if you make something
up that is a by definition a fanciful
name some examples of this are gonna be
Google Kodak Skype these are all
fanciful names none of them existed
before the companies created those names
to name their business Zappos is another
one that I would throw in there except
Zappos comes from the Spanish word
zapatos
which means shoes so that's a little bit
of gray area but I would call it
fanciful here's the plusses to using
fanciful names fanciful names are very
easy to be trademarked but there's also
some negatives that go with them because
when you make up a name nobody knows
what that you're talking about and so
you have to have a lot of money to put
behind that brand to educate the public
about what it is that you're actually
selling so in general from a trademark
perspective fanciful names are gonna be
great but from a practical standpoint
they're not so great because they take a
lot of time of money to educate the
public the second category of names are
gonna be the arbitrary names and these
are names that are already in existence
but they're being used in a way that is
unrelated to their initial meeting
meeting no no meaning being used in a
way that is unrelated to their initial
meaning got me some great examples of
this are gonna be Apple and Amazon all
of those are names that were in the
dictionary before Apple decided to use
Apple as their brand name or before
Amazon decided to use these names
they're being used in an a in a way that
is completely unrelated to what the word
was initially intended we all know what
an Apple is but Apple is a computer
company and has nothing to do with
selling apples Amazon I'm not sure
Jeff Bezos came up with named Amazon I'm
sure there's a story behind that that is
clearly used in a way that is not what
it was initially intended we're not
talking about selling a rainforest we're
talking about selling an online
marketplace to sell books is what it
started out with as so arbitrary names
the pros and cons here are number one
the pros from a trademark perspective
again they're gonna be names that are
fairly easy to trademark but the cons
again just like with the fanciful names
you have to do a lot of education you
kind of tell people what you're all
about and that takes a lot of money and
time and effort a lot of people aren't
necessarily going to know what your
business is about when you're just
getting started from that standpoint
again as a practical matter they're not
necessarily gonna be the best names for
a small online business that might be a
solopreneur or something that you're
doing with your spouse or a couple
friends and building up an online
business so suggestive names is the
third category names these are gonna be
names that suggest a quality or
characteristic of the goods or services
that you are selling so great examples
of this are gonna be greyhound
FaceTime snapchat Wrangler these all
kind of have these these Greyhound
sounds like it's something that's gonna
be fast so it's Greyhound bus fast bus
Wrangler kind of gives you the sense of
this you know cowboy style and that's
kind of indicative of the genes that are
being sold suggestive names are really
good names for trademark purposes
because again they're names that are
that are previously in the dictionary
but they're they're being used in a
different sort of way but at the same
time they're being used in a way that
kind of suggests what the good or
service is all about when you're using a
suggestive name you don't need to spend
as much money there still needs to be
some education involved but you don't
need to spend as much money explaining
to the public what the brand is all
about I haven't talked about this a lot
in the past pavón law is a suggestive
name and the reason it's a suggestive
name is because a Hawthorn tree or
Hawthorn bush was used back hundreds of
years ago to protect property from
thieves and predators and at Hawthorn we
protect online businesses from people
that would steal your brand other
businesses people that might sue you the
government taxes all these things were
were trying to protect online businesses
from all these predators that might come
in and try and steal your property from
that standpoint Hawthorne the name I've
chosen in Hawthorne law is somewhat
suggestive of the type of law practice
that we're trying to build that's a pro
tip so these first three the fanciful
the arbitrary and the suggestive those
are kind of the above the bar terms
they're going to be easiest to trademark
if and when you decide you want to
trademark your brand
these next two categories are much more
difficult to credit to trademark and
actually the last category is incapable
of trademark protection at all the
fourth category is going to be called
descriptive terms descriptive terms are
terms that merely describe the product
or service they might also use the
owner's name or the geographic location
where you do business so I've talked
about this in a past video if I were a
law firm and I named my firm
you know the Raleigh law firm or the
Carey law firm because that's where my
law firm is located in North Carolina
that I can't trademark that it's just
the description of the geographic
location where we're located now that's
not to say that these terms can't ever
be trademarked they can if over time
they acquire distinctiveness then at a
certain point they can actually be
trademarked however when you're just
starting your business if your mark is
merely descriptive and nothing else then
it is not going to be able to be
trademarked your application will be
denied there are some fairly famous
examples of trademarks that are merely
descriptive for example McDonald's was
named after the McDonald's brothers who
started the burger franchise but at the
time that it was started it didn't have
the distinctiveness that it has today
American Airlines is merely descriptive
of the fact that we've got an airline
that exists in America
Bank of America same thing using a
descriptive term although you're not
going to be able to trademark that term
right off the bat if you continue to
work at and build your brand then over
time you will be able to trademark that
term but you got to work at it alright
the last category is generic terms and
these are terms that are not capable of
being trademarked at all these are just
basically the table store
b1 the container I'm I wonder if they
can do I need to look into this is The
Container Store trademark well a second
let's do some quick recon and see I
might even put my glasses on for this I
bet it is
it is fairly descriptive right I'm not
sure how the container store got
trademarked but it's probably because
it's acquired distinctiveness over time
and they're looking at it as a
descriptive term but if you said the
Apple Store and it's not a store that
sells computers it's the store that
sells apples you're not going to be able
to trademark that term so if you're
thinking about what type of name you
want to use to trademark your business
you definitely want to consider names
that are above the bar so you want to
look at probably the suggestive terms
more than anything else because words
that are unrelated your business but do
convey a meaning about what you do or
what you sell in a positive way are
gonna be the most memorable and powerful
brand names for your business and those
are the ones you really want to focus on
when you're thinking about what type of
name to use for your business or for the
products or services that you sell so if
you want to learn more about how to
trademark your brand or the products or
services you sell I've got another video
right here that's gonna give you an
overview of the process and what you
need to know and what you need to do if
that's something that you want to do so
check this video out and we'll see you
next time
