someone else in the same city/county has a business already established with this name. I did search when I started building the business and before I registered the name and nothing came up with it but about a week after I recieved all the paper work that the name was mine I found another business using the same name. Strange thing is that they have supposedly been open since 2006 but I never saw it in my searching.

They never registered it so it is mine now, but would you continue with the name and tell them to cease using it or would you just come up with a new name? I dont want to cause trouble but I have already started building a base with this name and I followed the proper process to set everything up.

Any thoughts or guidance would be much appreciated.
Thanks!

If they didn't register it, then shame on them. Must not have meant much to them...it's yours baby, draft the proper paperwork and claim it!

How did you all of a sudden discover there was another entity with this name?

How long have you been using the name without registering it? Unless you are really attached to the name I would just change it a bit. II'm going to assume its Barbara's cakes as thats the name on your pics, maybe you could change it to Barbara's City Cakes or Babara's fancy cakes or whatever...I mean why cause problems for the other people having to change their name, business cards, website packageing etc. Esp being in the same town, you're in competition with each other for business you dont want someone bad mouthing you.

If you have a legal right to this name, let them know. Give them a good amount of time to change their name or buy it from you, though. Just be nice about it.

I guess what I mean is how did you discover it? Did it show up in a search of the DBA database? Or did you just see an advertisement for them?

The funny thing with DBA databases is all you have to do is change one character and the name won't come up. Even an extra space accidentally added can cause this to happen.

Handle this right ... contact an attorney and find out what the proper steps are. Dont' assume anything.

HEre's another thread with add'l advice and info: http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-619107-attorney.html

Oh and when you say search are you just talking about searching the internet through like google or some other search engine or did you actually search your county's DBA database?

Well Like I said in the DBA databases all that need be different is one character or space or added character like a period or a dash to cause the other name to not come up and for your "rendition" of the name to be available.

I would contact the company and ask them to produce their DBA. If they have one and the names are the same, then you can take the issue up with the county, but if their DBA is older than your they trump you and you have to surrender the name.

It could be, however that the other biz found out about you and decided to "backdate" info on their site in an attempt to make others believe they had the name first.

But you will have to contact them to get this settled. If ya'll can do this amicably, that would be great, if the other "cakes by barbara" doesn't cooperate to remedy the situation, then contact a lawyer.

The one thing I noticed is that your photos show your name in all lowercase letters. If her DBA is with upper and lower case letters it will more than likely not show up as the same.

THANK YOU guys! I really appreciate all the info and help.