6. Rate for Uniqueness
Step 6 of 8
Rate for Uniqueness
[Dear Readers, Please Note: Content is still in development during Private Beta.]
[Thanks. - The Nameloader Team]
And the beat goes on…
Rating names is so enthralling, it warrants 2 steps in our workflow. Step 5 covered rating names for appeal, while Step 6 (below) covers rating names for uniqueness. Both steps rely on the Nameloader Edit & Rate page
Why Rate for Uniqueness?
Adopting a name that someone else in your industry is already using — wittingly or ignorantly — can get you into a world of branding and legal trouble. Confusing customers, being sued by other trademark holders, paying huge legal bills, being court ordered to stop selling your idea until you change the name, renaming and changing all your branding materials - we can go on and on. In essence, trademark infringement is a living nightmare that can bankrupt your big idea. We urge you to get a professional trademark search after you’ve created your name. We also urge you to register your trademark. Links for these activities are in our Trademarking section
Being Unique Ain’t Easy
A name that you may consider to be unique is not necessarily protectable as a trademark. At the bottom of this page, we’ve included some happy reading on how family names, descriptive names and acronyms can be difficult to protect as trademarks.
Also, if you hope to be unique by spelling your name differently than conventionally expected, we have to remind you that trademark law is based on how names sound - not how they’re spelled.
Finally, the advice in this Branding How-To is to help you arrive at a shortlist of 3 to 5 names to submit for a formal trademark search. This advice is not intended to be a replacement for a formal trademark search.
Click on the circles to rate for uniqueness
In the last column of the Edit & Rate Names page is a series of circles, labeled Uniqueness. Compare your results for Google Hits, domain availability and direct trademark matches. Then, click on the circles to rate each name’s uniqueness. The number of circles you award each name should reflect the uniqueness of that name.
Rate the uniqueness of your names against the following guide:
5 circles: appears unique worldwide, suitable for formal trademark search, domain available/for sale
4 circles: appears unique to target & industry, suitable for formal trademark search, domain available/for sale
3 circles: appears unique to target & industry, suitable for formal trademark search, domain not available
2 circles: uncertain, high volume or lack of information on potential conflicts
1 circle: unlikely unique, potential conflicts possible
Trash: clear conflicts discovered
Search Engine Results as an Indicator of Uniqueness
Google indexes every word and name on billions of web pages worldwide. This can help you assess the uniqueness of your name. Under Google Hits, simply click View and Nameloader returns the number of Google results for each name. If you have a short and highly unusual name, you may be lucky to get zero hits - which is an excellent uniqueness indicator. But in almost all cases, you’ll learn that your name is not unique worldwide. Your job then is to determine if anyone else is using your desired name in a way that could be confused with your intended usage.
Let’s keep with our widget company example. Comparing Google Hits, we assessed the uniqueness of each name for the widget making industry.
With so few results, and none related to widgets or selling to our target market, these names are ideal for a formal trademark search.
Coremonics — 5 hits
Quintkin — 6 hits
These names triggered considerable hits. They’ll require more refined searching (see below).
Elekin — 2,960 hits
Corestone — 3,010 hits
Zipbit — 8,030 hits
Minikin — 84,000 hits
Pressence — 123,000 hits
Zipkey — 3,340,000 hits
The following names are common English words that generated too many hits to review. They’ll require more refined searching (see next section).
Quintessence — 4,370,000 hits
Whippet — 2,980,000 hits
Intrinsic — 20,700,000 hits
Keystone — 25,800,000 hits
Bulldog — 29,800,000 hits
Click here to check your names for Google Hits
Refine Search Engine Results
With names that return too many hits to assess, refine your results with search terms related to your idea or target audience. Enter your search terms into the boxes in the yellow-colored area, above the Google Hits indicator.
Back to our widget company example. To refine our Google Hits, we entered two search terms into the boxes. First, we entered the term “widget” because that’s what an inventor will likely type into a search engine when online hunting for widgets. Second, we entered the term “USA” because this is where we plan to sell our widgets. Comparing refined Google Hits, we better determined each name’s uniqueness.
With zero direct hits, these names are ideal for a formal trademark search.
Coremonics — 0 hits
Quintkin — 0 hits
Elekin — 62 hits (none appear to be direct TM conflicts)
Minikin — 1,000 hits (none appear to be direct TM conflicts)
These names triggered a few potential conflicts.
Corestone — 4 hits (found 1 possible product using name, unsure if it’ll cause confusion)
We trashed the following names. Their hits revealed direct and/or indirect trademark conflicts.
Quintessence — 403,000 hits (Found Quintessance Widget Management - direct conflict)
Whippet — 121,000 hits (Found Whippet Widgets - direct conflict)
Zipbit — 602 hits (Found Zipbix, software for mechanical engineering - indirect conflict)
Zipkey — 6,140 hits (Too similar to Zipbix - likely to be a conflict)
Intrinsic — 714,000 (Immediately found Intrinsic Widgets - direct conflict)
Pressence — 10,500 hits (found a few clear conflicts)
Keystone — 290,000 hits (found a few clear conflicts)
Bulldog — 312,000 hits (found a few clear conflicts)
Click here to check your names for Google Hits
Domain Availability as an Indicator of Uniqueness
The availability of Top Level Domains (TLDs) like .com and .net can be a powerful indicator of uniqueness. If you have a short, easy to spell name with a freely available domain - snap it up. Tens of millions of new domains are registered each month. It’s no exaggeration that yours could be next. If you can’t find an available TLD, and your domain is important to your business’s success - modify your name or find another name. (Yeah, naming can get complicated.) For more help, check out our domains section.
If you have a preference for the registrar from which to buy your domain, click Change Registrar in the yellow-colored area to view your options.
Nameloader also lets you search through multiple Top Level Domains (TLDs). Click Change TLDs in the yellow-colored area to select from the following TLDs:
biz - All businesses
ca - Canada
com - The gold standard
info - Information
jobs - Jobs
mobi - Mobile
name - Real or fictional name
net - Network
org - Organization
tv - Television (Tuvalu)
us - United States
Note that not all registrars support all TLDs. For example, Netfirms is currently the only supporter for .ca (Canada).
For our widget company, .com was our TLD of choice. From our domain search, we noted the following:
Each with three freely available TLDs, these names appear to be unique.
Coremonics — .com, .net, .org available
Quintkin — .com, .net, .org available
The .com for this name is parked, but we can offer to buy it from the owner.
Elekin
The .com for these names are already taken and in use.
Corestone — .com in full use by established business
Pressence — .com redirected to established business
We eliminated this name because it had a negative association. We don’t want that linked to our name.
Minikin — .com is a site for downloading pirated software.
The following names were already eliminated during Google search.
Zipbit
Quintessence
Whippet
Zipkey
Intrinsic
Keystone
Bulldog
Click here to check your domain names
Click here to learn more on domains
Investigate direct matches for U.S. Trademarks (if any)
Under the column labeled U.S. TM’s, click Check and Nameloader immediately searches for direct hits on the United States Patent & Trademark Office database. It’s critical to appreciate that direct hits are exact matches to your name. This does not guarantee you a trademark, it just helps you find direct matches. Upon finding a direct match, you must determine if there is grounds for confusion in the marketplace. See our trademark page for more.
If direct hits are found, click View and Nameloader returns the Record List Display of hits in a new browser window. Be diligent. (We said that before, but we really kinda mean it.) Take time to investigate the hits to see if you are in danger of getting into legal hot water infringing on someone else’s trademark.
Here’s how our names fared for our widget company example:
These names appear to have no direct conflicts
Coremonics — 0 TM hits
Quintkin –0 TM hits
Elekin — 0 TM hits
Corestone — found 1 abandoned trademark, no apparant conflict
These names triggered direct conflicts.
Minikin — 20 trademarks found, at least one is a direct conflict
Pressence — direct conflict found
The following names were already eliminated during Google search.
Zipbit
Quintessence
Whippet
Zipkey
Intrinsic
Keystone
Bulldog
Getting to Your Shortlist
At this point, you’ll find that rating for uniqueness eliminates names you first considered to be extremely appealing. It’s unfortunate, but uniqueness trumps appeal when it comes to naming. Because of strict trademark law and legal implications, it’s simply better to be safe than sorry.
Here’s the uniqueness rating (circles) for our widget company names:
5 circles: appears unique worldwide, suitable for formal trademark search, domain available or for sale
Quintkin
Coremonics
4 circles: appears unique to target & industry, suitable for formal trademark search, domain available /for sale
Elekin ****
3 circles: appears unique to target & industry, suitable for formal trademark search, domain not available
Corestone ****
2 circles: uncertain if unique, high volume or lack of information on potential conflicts
none
1 circle = unlikely unique, potential conflicts possible
none
Trash = clear conflicts discovered
Pressence — trashed during TM search
Zipstone — trashed during Google search
Zipbit — trashed during Google search
Quintessence — trashed during Google search
Whippet — trashed during Google search
Zipkey — trashed during Google search
Intrinsic — trashed during Google search
Keystone — trashed during Google search
Bulldog — trashed during Google search
Minikin — trashed during domain search
Of our unique names, we like Coremonics the best - it’d be our first choice for a formal trademark search and registration through a service like legalzoom.com. Corestone is be our second choice, with Quintkin coming in third. (Quintkin is more protectable, but less appealing than our top two names.)
Click here to rate your names for uniqueness
Click here to learn more on trademarking
More on uniqueness and protectability
What you may consider unique is not the same as being protectable. A protectable name is one that’s legally protectable by trademark law. Some important things to consider in this matter:
>This is a gross simplification, but trademarks are granted by governing authorities if the name in question won’t conflict or create confusion with an existing trademark. This means that names can be spelled differently, but still cause confusion. For example, take the names “Coremonics” and “Kornomix”. The similarity in pronunciation is enough to create brand confusion with audiences. To that point, two names like “Coremonics” and “Caremin” appear to be different, but their similarity in pronunciation is enough to be confusing.
>Trademark availability isn’t based on the quality of your search. Rather, it’s based on whoever’s used the name first, and if that name is still in full use. If your name appears to be unique, you may still not have searched hard enough. The onus is on you the namer to diligently search for any usage of the trademark. Go one step further - look for conflicts by searching your local phonebook or consutling services like legalzoom.com
>As well, some types of names are more protectable than others. Here’s a breakdown:
Types of Names & their Protectability
Abstract Names <——–Associative Names——-> Family/Descriptive/Acronym Names
High Protection <———————————————————————-> Low Protection
Examples:
Coremonics–Intrinsic–Whippet–Wigex–InvinciWidgets–Jones–US Widgets Inc–UWI
Abstract
Examples: Coremonics, Starbucks, Apple
These are names that are either invented or arbitrary. They don’t overtly describe the nature, dramatic difference or benefits of your idea. But in their nondescript nature, they’re uniquely different and won’t loose value as the nature of the company evolves. They are most protectable under trademark law.
Associative
Examples: Widgstone, Duracell, Microsoft
These names create sufficient overt associations for people to infer something about what stands behind the name. But because of their semi-descriptive nature, these names can be very popular and possibly less protectable. They may not have the longevity of Abstract names, as the desired overt associations of today may be unimportant in the future.
Family
Examples: Kellogg’s, Disney, McDonald’s
Family names convey a sense of familiarity and assurance. In this day and age, family names make for poor trademarks as they are not unique. If you start a company under your name, you don’t want to have to consider the costs of preventing a disgruntled relative or same-named person from starting a similar company and creating confusion in the market. The many family names on the fortune 100 are not an indicatopr that family names are easily protectable, rather these firms have invested millions if not billions in solidifying their trademarks, something you are probably not ready to do.
Descriptive
Example: Vision Center
As its name implies, these are names that provide an accurate description of what’s being named. There’s enough in the name for your audience to clearly infer what your idea is all about. Because they’re typically contain common words, descriptive names are usually not unique to the naming world. Trademark law also discourages ownership of common words, regardless of your business or industry.
Acronym
Examples: IBM, GE
These names are initials of words related to your idea, arranged together to form a pronounceable name. Typically, acronyms represent the technical name of an idea that was too long or lost meaning over time. They seem easy to create, but they are often uninspiring for target audiences, and by far the most difficult to protect by trademark law.
Rate your names for uniqueness and protectability in Nameloader
