Costs
Part of Business name search: state approval is not the right to use it
Seven verification gates: what stands between a name idea and a truly free choice
Business name search checks in order, cheapest first: seven gates, what a hit means, what silence does not, and how far up the ladder to go.
The checks you can run on a proposed name are not equal, and the order you run them in decides how much of your time gets wasted. Run them cheapest first. Every gate below can kill a name outright, and none of them can clear one, which is the single most important thing to understand before you start.
That asymmetry is what makes an ordered list worth having. You are not accumulating approvals. You are trying to fail fast, on the cheapest possible test, before the name reaches a sign, a domain purchase, or a product label.
What to take away
- Order the checks by cost and run them in that order. Most bad names die at the first or second gate.
- A gate that returns nothing has removed one objection, not all of them. Silence is never clearance.
- The only step that produces an actual opinion is the last one, and it is the one people skip.
The ladder
1. Say it out loud, then spell it down a phone. Free, immediate, and it kills more candidates than any register. If you cannot say the name without spelling it, every customer, supplier and bank will spend a small amount of effort on it forever. Ask someone to write it down from hearing it once. Then ask someone to read it aloud from seeing it once. Names that fail both tests are expensive in ways nobody measures.
Seven verification gates, cheapest first
- Say it out loud, spell it down a phone
- Search open web for exact name plus sector
- Search state entity index where you would form
- Check assumed name index
- Search trademark register
- Check domain and handles
- Get clearance opinion
2. Search the open web for the exact name plus your sector. Still free. You are looking for an active business using this name in work like yours. If one exists and you can see it in ten seconds, so can a customer, and so can their lawyer. This gate catches the unregistered user who owns no entity of that name and would still be the party most likely to object.
3. Search the entity index in the state you would form in. Which state that is depends on where you intend to form, not where you will work, a distinction the federal guide to starting a business keeps separate from everything else.
The search tells you whether the filing office will accept the name, using its own mechanical test of what counts as distinguishable from the names already on its list. That is all it tells you. How to run this search so it finds things is covered in business name search.
4. Check the assumed name index for the trading name you intend to use. If you plan to trade under something other than the entity name, this is a separate index, and in some places it sits with a county rather than the state. Which index holds what is set out in the directory of filing office indexes.
5. Search the federal trademark register in the classes of goods or services you will actually sell in. Free to search through the USPTO's own trademark database, and a different question from every gate above it. You are looking for registrations and pending applications that are similar in sound, appearance or meaning, in related classes. A hit here is a serious finding. No hit is not a clean result, because unregistered rights built through use appear on no register.
6. Check the domain and the main handles. Legally weightless, practically decisive. A name whose obvious domain is held by an active business in a related field is telling you something the registers did not.
7. Get a clearance opinion. The only step in this list that yields a judgment rather than a search result, and the only one that costs real money. It is proportionate for a name you will build a business on and disproportionate for a side project you would rename without much regret.
What each gate can and cannot say
| Gate | A hit means | Silence means |
|---|---|---|
| Sound and spelling test | Rename now, before anything else | Nothing about rights, only that the name is workable |
| Open web in your sector | Someone is using it; treat as a real objection | You did not find them in ten minutes |
| State entity index | The office will likely refuse your filing | The office will likely accept it, in that state only |
| Assumed name index | The trading name is already registered there | It is unregistered there, not that it is unused |
| Trademark register | A registration or application conflicts | Nothing about unregistered use |
| Domain and handles | Practical collision, and a clue about who else is out there | Only that these particular strings are free today |
| Clearance opinion | A stated risk, with reasons | This gate does not return silence; it returns a view |
Read the right column twice. Six of the seven produce negative evidence, and negative evidence from a register is weak by construction: it tells you what is not on one list.
What each gate can and cannot say
Gate
- Sound and spelling test
- Rename now
- Open web in your sector
- Someone is using it
- State entity index
- Office will likely refuse
- Assumed name index
- Trading name registered
- Trademark register
- Registration or application conflicts
- Domain and handles
- Practical collision
- Clearance opinion
- Stated risk, with reasons
A hit means
- Sound and spelling test
- Nothing about rights
- Open web in your sector
- You did not find them
- State entity index
- Office will likely accept
- Assumed name index
- Unregistered, not unused
- Trademark register
- Nothing about unregistered use
- Domain and handles
- These strings are free today
- Clearance opinion
- Returns a view, not silence
Silence means
- Sound and spelling test
- Open web in your sector
- State entity index
- Assumed name index
- Trademark register
- Domain and handles
- Clearance opinion
The check people skip
Some words are restricted, and names implying banking, insurance, trust services, engineering, or medicine are commonly gated. So are law, education, and government connection names, which need consent or a license from the regulating body.
Each jurisdiction sets which words are restricted and what is required, so read the filing office's name requirements before you fall for a name containing one. Reaching the real office, not a lookalike, is covered in state entity directories.
The failure mode here is late and annoying: the name passes every search on this page, then the filing is rejected or held for a consent you did not know you needed.
How far up the ladder to go
Match the effort to what a rename would cost you.
How far up the ladder to go
Would you change the name without complaint?
Gates one to three; do not spend more
Is it going on packaging, signage, vehicle, or app store listing?
- A name you would change without complaint.Gates one to three. Do not spend more.
- A name going on packaging, signage, a vehicle, or an app store listing.Gates one to six, properly, and write down what you found.
- A name you intend to defend, or that carries the value of the business.All seven. The cost of gate seven is small next to a rebrand, and much smaller than a dispute.
After the name is chosen
The name is the start of the record, not the end of it. Once the entity exists, the thing that identifies it in every future lookup is not the name but the file number, for the reasons set out in entity number lookup. Record it the day you get it.
And keep the evidence from the gates you ran: which index, which spelling, which date, what came back. If a question about the name ever arrives, the useful answer is a dated record of what you checked, not a recollection that you checked.
Common questions
The state accepted my name. Do I still need the trademark search?
Yes, and ideally before you file rather than after. Acceptance is a collision check against one office's list. It is not a finding about anyone's rights in the name.
Can I skip the assumed name check if I will trade under the entity name exactly?
If the name on the sign, the invoice and the register really are the same string, there is nothing to register and nothing to check. That is rarer than people expect, because informal shortening counts. "Northgate" on the door and "Northgate Supply Company LLC" on the register is a gap.
Somebody else has the domain but is not using it. Does that matter?
Not for your right to the name, and quite a lot for your marketing. Treat it as a cost of the name rather than an obstacle to it, and decide whether you want to pay that cost before you commit.
