Registering Your Own Name as a Trademark: Surname Bars Consent and Secondary Meaning

40 questions on registering your own name as a trademark, answered and cited by the UpLaw editorial team.

• Can a company's founder story hurt its surname trademark application?
• Can a trademark application face both a surname refusal and a consent requirement?
• Can I register my first name as a trademark?
• Can selling a business cost you the right to use your own name?
• Can stylization save a surname mark from refusal?
• Does having a rare surname avoid the Section 2(e)(4) refusal?
• Does registering a domain with someone's name constitute trademark infringement?
• How does a surname acquire secondary meaning?
• How does the doctrine of foreign equivalents apply to surname refusals?
• How do you build a persuasive response to a surname refusal?
• How do you register your own name as a trademark, step by step?
• How much weight does directory evidence carry in a surname refusal?
• Is a full personal name easier to register than a bare surname?
• Is a trademark in your name worth the cost if you are not famous?
• Is five years of use enough to register a surname on the Principal Register?
• Must an examiner consider a name mark as a whole rather than dissecting it?
• Must the alternative meaning of a surname be well known?
• What additions to a surname do NOT help overcome a Section 2(e)(4) refusal?
• What are the Benthin factors for surname refusals?
• What are the key takeaways for registering a personal name as a trademark?
• What are the three ways to prove acquired distinctiveness for a surname?
• What can I do if someone else registers my name as a trademark?
• What did Vidal v. Elster decide about the trademark names clause?
• What does Section 2(c) of the Lanham Act require?
• What does Section 2(e)(4) of the Lanham Act prohibit?
• What does the Jordan v. Jewel Food Stores case illustrate about name protection?
• What evidence proves secondary meaning in a surname mark?
• What famous cases shaped the right of publicity?
• What is Section 2(f) acquired distinctiveness?
• What is the controlling question in a surname refusal?
• What is the difference between a trademark in your name and the right of publicity?
• What is the strongest argument against a surname refusal?
• What is the Supplemental Register, and when should a surname applicant use it?
• When does the Section 2(c) names clause get triggered?
• Where does the right of publicity come from, and which states protect it?
• Where do surnames sit on the trademark distinctiveness spectrum?
• Who wins if there is genuine doubt about whether a mark is primarily merely a surname?
• Why do celebrities clear the surname bar more easily than ordinary founders?
• Why is it harder to register a surname than an invented word as a trademark?
• Why must a registered name mark keep being used?