Choosing a Company Name

[Greg Squire]

I'm at the stage of picking a company name. A quick Google search came up with these articles:

http://www.smallbusinessnotes.com/starting/busname.html
http://www.powerhomebiz.com/vol3/name.htm
http://www.nolo.com/lawcenter/ency/article.cfm/ObjectID/566550BB-8B2B-4CAD-A03752295A38EB58/catID/7037786D-4688-4C4E-947C609C7CCFE81A

I've heard horror stories from some that had a name too similar to another company's name and ended up getting sued or getting "cease and decist" letters from lawyers. In all cases they ended up changing their name. So what level of name research is needed to avoid this pitfall. I know it takes more than just seeing if the domain name and similar domains are taken. Do you really need to go to the level of hiring a lawyer, or are there some good ways to find this info out. Would it be just a matter of looking for any other similar trademarks? (I found this page here (http://www.nameprotect.com/cgi-bin/FREEsearch/search.cgi) for looking up trademarks, but I don't know how thorough it is.)

I also understand if the name is similar, but the other company is in another line of business (like a restaurant) then your pretty safe. Also if you do business in different states you're also safe, but since you'd potentially be selling games world-wide then that wouldn't apply. Is my understanding correct here (at least under US Law)?

[LiquidAsh]

You should at least check with your secretary of state. In MN you can do a free search off their website to find companies that are registered under similar names in your state.

You should also probably do a few trademark searches which are free at <http://www.uspto.gov>. For a more thorough search, you should probably hire a lawyer (the quality and rates of which vary quiet a bit), or just apply for a trademark (which you can do alone, or through a lawyer).

Everyone has a different threshold for security with these things, so you should probably just spend as much time, and money as it takes to help you sleep at night.

[Greg Squire]

Thanks for the advice. I also found some more info in this in this document here (http://www.nolo.com/lawcenter/ency/article.cfm/objectID/E13CD365-3792-4908-AF21BA10D0647C3B/catID/7037786D-4688-4C4E-947C609C7CCFE81A).

I guess there's no perfect science to this. One could spend months researching. I suppose, at some point you call it good and hope for the best. I'm sure applying for a trademark could also uncover something (if there is something) or it will protect you if someone else later claimed that you were using their trademark. I believe that a registered trademark would trump a trademark, if a battle ensued. (However that costs money to do)

[Valen]

If you're registering a company, the name has to be different from other companies that are registered in your state. If you have a lawyer or a site like bizfilings.com register it for you they will first find out if your name is unique or not.

[Jason Colman]

My feeling is that if you are able to register the internet domain for the company name you want, it's yours. What were these other companies doing up until you registered it ? Of course, this is not strictly legal advice :)

[SmartMelon]

If you can find a unique domain name and can't find the name in use using Google, then you're probably safe that there are no companies using the name that would conflict with your company. If you decide to officially register the company name, you'll probably have to pay for a name search, but the rules differ by country. If you're looking for a unique domain name, I'd highly recommend using a tool like www.nameboy.com (http://www.nameboy.com/) for your search. Cheers!

Graeme Sweet

[BrainBlock]

Sometimes company names come from the strangest places.

I was trying to come up with a company name, years ago when I started doing this, and I told my wife that I was having a brain block. She said, "THAT'S IT!" -- and of course, for me, and for my games, that worked out perfectly well. I registered it as a corporation in Illinois and picked up the domain name. No worries or problems since then.

Good luck! Keep in mind that you could/might use your business entity for things other than games (I use mine for contract work doing non-game stuff, but since it fits in with my software development efforts, for accounting purposes, it all works out well), and also that using your actual name in the name (Such as "Mike Boeh's Computer Games, Inc.") could be limiting.

-Simeon
BrainBlock.com

[GBGames]

I just did a search on Google for GBGames, and while most of the links are to sites related to QBasic (GBGames used to be my QBasic game review site), there were a few things that I found that concerned me.

For one, I found gbgames.net the other day was owned by someone in Indiana. The site is being held by some hosting company. According to archive.org, gbgames.net used to be a repository for Game Boy ROMs.

gbgames.it (or gbgames-italia.com) is an Italian arcade game maker site as best as I can tell.

goodbookgames.com doesn't use GBGames directly, but does refer to its own games in the URL like: goodbookgames.com/GBGames/[name of game] or something similar.

gbgames.co.uk is apparently a huge UK-based gambling site.

In any of these cases, I feel pretty safe with GBGames and gbgames.com. Again, a number of sites and search engines already know of my site in regard to QBasic game reviews. I feel comfortable using GBGames as my future shareware company's name. The only thing that can be a problem is that someone will mistake my site for a Gameboy ROMs repository, but even when I ran the QB site, I only got a couple of emails regarding that.