What to secure, in what order, before you go public with your name.
The day you announce your brand is the day everyone else finds out your name. Some of them will try to grab what you haven't already secured. Here's the order in which to lock things down before you go public.
File before you launch. Trademark rights in most countries run from the application date, not the grant date — which means filing now protects you from the day you apply, even if the registration takes 6–12 months to complete. In the UK, you can file with UKIPO for around £170 for one class. Do this before anything else, because once you're public, someone could see your brand and file before you do.
If it's available, register it the day you decide on the name. Domain registrations are public record. If someone sees your WHOIS and notices you just registered yourbrand.com, they might try to grab yourbrand.io, .co, or other variants. Register your primary TLD first, then check the others.
Grab your Instagram, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, and TikTok handles immediately — even if you don't plan to use them yet. Squatters run scripts that watch new domain registrations and try to grab matching social handles. Be faster than them.
If you're incorporating, do it early. The company name becomes part of the public record and gives you another layer of protection in your jurisdiction.
Register the versions of your domain most likely to cause confusion if someone else has them — typically .co.uk if you're UK-based, and whatever the dominant TLD is in your primary market. Defensive registration costs a few pounds per year and is almost always worth it.
Use a watchlist service to alert you if similar names appear in trademark registers or if look-alike domains are registered. Early notice of an infringement is much easier (and cheaper) to deal with than discovering it twelve months later.
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