Is there a site you can search to see if a business name has been taken by someone?

Also, how to you go about legally registering your company name? I need to get a digital certificate, and this is required. I'm not incorporated at this time, just the sole owner.

Thanks.

Search the internet for your state and registration of fictitious names.

You can register a fictitious name with you as owner in your state. Most of the time you can search an online database to see if the name is still available.

Originally posted by addaction
Search the internet for your state and registration of fictitious names.

You can register a fictitious name with you as owner in your state. Most of the time you can search an online database to see if the name is still available. In most states, fictitious names or dbas are registered on a county level. And, if a business is incorporated or organized as an LLC they wouldn't, in most states, have to file a fictitious name certificate anywhere -- because their name wouldn't be "fictitious."

Many states have searchable databases of corporation and LLC names, so those would be worth looking for.

Buckeyehost, how exclusive do you want your name to be, or how wide the search?

There's no one-stop source for that kind of information. One place to look, though, is the US Patent and Trademark Office's website, which has a searchable database of trademarked terms. Of course that's not a complete list of business names. That's one of the reasons that people who are condsidering trademarking a name pay a patent and trademark lawyer; one of their services would be do an extensive search to find conflicting names.


The USPTO's Trademark Electronic Search Service:

http://tess.uspto.gov

(There's a more direct, more complicated url, but that's the one I can always remember!)

Basically, I'm just looking to find out where I register my business name, so I can supply the proper documentation to Verisign so I can get my ssl certificate.

Any help would be appreciated.

Originally posted by buckeyehost
Basically, I'm just looking to find out where I register my business name, so I can supply the proper documentation to Verisign so I can get my ssl certificate. OK, in that case -- assuming you're a sole proprietor doing business under some "fictitious name" -- most likely with your local county clerk's office. That's they way it is in most states, so start by asking them.

For that purpose it wouldn't matter whether anyone else was using the name as long as no one else in your county has registered it. But successfully registering a dba name at that level doesn't carry with it the right to use it; it's still possible that it belongs to someone else as a trademark.

Basically, I'm just looking to find out where I register my business name

With the secretary of state in your state or you can contact the county clerk and they will tell you. You can also contact an SBA or SBDC office and they will give you all the information you need and it's free. You can find an sba, sbdc office from the http://www.sba.gov site or http://www.businessnation.com/localinfo

If you want to search a non-trademarked/trademarked name nationally, then you can go to a regional library and they have cd roms or they can do a live search for most recent ones for small fee ($5-$15 per name).

I can personally recommend using nameprotect.com. We've used them before, and they also include a non-exaustive free search on their web site.