What Happens If I Register A Business Name Or A Pty Ltd Company? <br />What Rights Or Protection Do I Get?<br />The business name or the Pty Ltd company registration does not give you protection of your proprietary and intellectual property interest. <br /><br />The Business Names legislation and the Australian Securities and Investment Commission is concerned with the establishment of a public register of business and Pty Ltd company names and their particulars. They are not concerned with conferring rights or protection in respect of such a name. You should, after deciding on a business name or a Pty Ltd company, conduct a thorough search of the Trade Marks register to make sure that the business name or the Pty Ltd Company name is not similar to any registered mark. <br /><br />Business names and Pty Ltd company names are best protected from exploitation when they are registered trade marks. On the other hand, your new business name or Pty Ltd company name may infringe a registered trade mark. Be sure to search the trade mark database before registering a new business name or a Pty Ltd company name.<br /><br />What Is A Trade Mark?<br />A trade mark can be a word, phrase, letter, number, sound, smell, shape, logo, picture, aspect of packaging or a combination of these. It is used to distinguish the goods and services of one trader from those of another.<br /><br />A registered trade mark gives you the exclusive legal right to use, license or sell it within Australia for the goods and services for which it is registered. <br /><br />Trade mark registration is not compulsory but it is advisable. There is protection against misrepresentation under the trade practices or fair trading legislation. It is also possible to take action under common law but this can be a time-consuming and expensive exercise.<br /><br />Is there a difference between a trade mark and a business, Pty Ltd company or domain name?<br />Yes.<br /><br />The difference between trade marks, business, Pty Ltd company and domain names sometimes causes confusion for both traders and the public.<br /><br />A Pty Ltd company name or a registrable body must be registered under the national Corporations Law administered by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. Once registered, it covers the whole of Australia. If a Pty Ltd company wishes to trade using a name other than the registered company name, it will be necessary for the company to register that name as a business name.<br /><br />A business name is a name under which a business operates. Registration serves as a means of identifying the owners of the business and is obtained under state or territory legislation. Registration of a business name in any Australian state only gives you rights in respect of the particular state where the registration is made.<br /><br />Where trading occurs in more than one state or territory, the business name must be registered under the laws of each one. Registration of a business name is compulsory and must be completed before the business starts trading.<br /><br />A trade mark is used to distinguish the goods or services of one trader from those of other traders. Registration of a trade mark gives the registered owner exclusive use of the trade mark throughout Australia.<br /><br />Registration Of A Business, Company Or Domain Name Does Not In Itself Give You Any Proprietary Rights-Only A Trade Mark Can Give You That Kind Of Protection.<br /><br />The same word(s) may be registered by different people as business names and trade marks. However, the registered trade mark owner can sue the business owner for infringing the trade mark if the business name owner uses it on goods or services similar to those covered by the trade mark registration.<br /><br />What About Domain Names?<br />In current times, besides deciding on the business name and the trade mark, a trader also has to consider the registration of a domain name to protect their intellectual property.<br /><br />A domain name is a textual address for a location on the Internet that corresponds to the actual alpha numeric address which the Internet computers can read. The rules for registration of a dot.au domain used to be quite strict. Since 1st July 2002, the ability to register domain names under the dot.au category has been relaxed significantly. You should see http://www.melbourneit.com.au for the latest information on registration of domain names.<br /><br />What can you do?? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/default/grin.gif" />