In Short
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Register your business name and website name as trademarks for full brand protection.
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Check for trademark and domain name availability early to avoid future conflicts.
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Registering your website name ensures exclusive rights, but doesn’t prevent others from using the same business name.
Tips for Businesses
To protect your brand, ensure your business and website names are identical and available for both trade mark and domain registration. Apply for a trade mark and domain early to prevent complications later. Conduct a thorough search to confirm the availability of your desired names and save time and money.
A trade mark is one type of intellectual property (IP) protection that protects your brand assets, including your business name, logo, colours or even a specific packaging shape. Furthermore, registering a trade mark gives you exclusive rights and serves as legal protection and a marketing tool. Another critical marketing tool is your business’ website, which is how your customers will find and identify your business online. This article will take you through whether you should register a trade mark for your website name and when and how you should do so.
Your business’ brand represents your values, identity and reputation. Learn how to create a successful brand and protect it.
Should You Trade Mark Your Website Name?
Before considering whether you should register a trade mark for your website name, you must understand that trade marks and website registration have two separate registration procedures. Website names must be registered with an accredited registrar or reseller listed on the Domain Administration Ltd (auDA) website, which develops and administers Australia’s top-level domain.
Having a trade mark registered for your business name does not automatically entitle you to the corresponding website name. However, if you have a registered trade mark and someone licenses a domain name that is the same as or similar to your trade mark, you may submit a complaint to auDA.
Ultimately, registering a trade mark will help protect your brand in its entirety. As such, you should register a trade mark for your business name, which should ideally be the same as your domain name. This is the best way to have comprehensive brand protection while maximising goodwill.
When You Should Trade Mark Your Website Name
Ideally, your website name should be the same as your business name. Therefore, you should register a trade mark for your business name and apply for the domain address for your website as soon as possible. Once you have registered your business name with ASIC (if applicable), you should ensure that:
- your business name is available for trade mark registration; and
- a domain name is available before you even commence your business operations.
If someone takes your domain name, it may be easier to secure that domain if you are willing to purchase it. Identifying the availability of both your business and domain as soon as possible will save you a lot of stress and money later down the line.
You should conduct a trade mark search to determine whether your website/business name is available for trade mark registration. This will help identify whether there are any existing identical or similar trade marks to your proposed trade mark. IP Australia’s trade mark search tool ATMOS is the best way to check the availability of Australian trade marks.
Continue reading this article below the formHow To Register Your Website Name as a Trade Mark
Registering a trade mark for your business name involves several steps. Firstly, you must consider which elements of your brand you wish to register. Then, in addition to your business name, consider registering a trade mark for your logo, slogan, or more.
Once you have decided what trade mark you wish to register, you will need to select the classes of goods and services to use your trade mark.
As outlined above, you should search to confirm your trade mark is available. Once you have confirmed its availability, you can apply for trade mark registration. This requires you to apply for assessment by IP Australia.
Key Takeaways
When you decide if you should register your business name as a trade mark, you might also be wondering about the best time to apply for registration. Some key things to note about this include that you should:
- try to ensure your business name and website name are identical;
- check that your business name is available for trade mark and domain registration; and
- register a trade mark and apply for the domain of your website as soon as you can.
If you need assistance registering a trade mark for your business or understanding domain names, our experienced trade mark lawyers can assist as part of our LegalVision membership. For a low monthly fee, you will have unlimited access to lawyers to answer your questions and draft and review your documents. Call us today on 1300 544 755 or visit our membership page.
Frequently Asked Questions
All registered website names are exclusive, but this will not prevent competitors from establishing a business with the same name. Instead, it only prevents them from having an identical website name. Therefore, you should register a trade mark for your business name and ensure that this is the same as your domain name.
You should register a trade mark for your business name and apply for the domain address for your website as soon as possible. You should ensure that your business name is available for trade mark registration and that a domain name is available before you even commence your business operations where possible. This reduces the chance that you begin business operations and later find out these names are not available for domain name or trade mark registration, which might result in the need to rebrand.
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