Your Business Name Isn't Yours Yet
There's a moment most business owners remember. You've registered the company, bought the domain, printed the cards — and someone asks whether the name is protected. You assume it is. Three official-looking registrations sit in your inbox, after all.
None of them do that job. Companies House stops another company forming under an identical name; it doesn't stop anyone trading under yours. A domain gives you an address, not a right. And using a name for years builds an argument, not ownership — one you'd have to prove, expensively, if it ever came to it.
The only thing that reliably settles the question is a registered trademark. It gives you a dated, official record that the name belongs to you across the goods and services you sell, and it's what platforms, marketplaces and solicitors ask for when somebody starts trading too close to you. Protection runs ten years from the day you file, renewable indefinitely, and it backdates to that filing date rather than the day the certificate arrives.
People usually search trademark business name at one of two moments: just before a launch, or just after a problem. The first takes about four months and starts with a free search. The second starts with a solicitor's letter and ends with a rebrand you didn't plan for.
The Trademark Helpline has been handling that first conversation since 2008. Working from Manchester with the UK Intellectual Property Office, the team runs a free search on your name, logo or tagline, tells you honestly whether it's likely to clear, and — if it is — drafts the application, chooses the classes that define exactly what you own, and manages the IPO process through examination, publication and the opposition window. If it isn't, they say so before you commit. Around one in three enquiries ends that way.
Worth finding out which one you are.