Can a sole proprietorship marketing and creative service business apply for the federal trademarking for its company logo and company name? Its a sole proprietorship so the business name is NOT automatically reserved as it would be for an llc or corporation! Thanks in advance!
You can apply for a Federal trademark, however, it won't automatically prevent someone else from using the name for an llc or corporation. Corporate names and llc's are granted by the state who do not check for trademarks, only if someone else has that exact name, in that state. If you registered "Purple Birds, inc" in Illinois, someone could register the same name in another state. Even a federal trademark doesn't give you exclusive right to a name, only a particular classification (and there are over 40 different ones). For instance, there are several owners of a "MySpace" trademark (different classifications) and any of them could use it for a corporate name.