What do you all think of this Enticing Icings?

Nice name!
It has a cute sound to it.

I think you ought to be smart and keep it to your yourself until you are incorporated or file an Assumed Name certificate (or whatever Canadians file to protect their business name).

Some twit that I taught Wilton classes to years ago took my business name, XXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXX, stuck "and" between XXXXXXXX and XXXXX, and started advertising.

I caught wind of it and she has a nasty legal cease and desist letter in her immediate future.

I checked sorry it looks like it's taken

http://www.enticingicing.com/

Since you're in Canada and this seems to be an individual decorator (small business) in the US, I wonder if you could still use that name for your business? Not sure what the legalities are there.

Dang , I'll have to get a lawyer to do a title search I guess. Hopefully I can still use it Oh well if I can't, I'll have to think of something else.... any suggestions?

..that really is a cute name! Since that particular name is already taken, could you add a little something to it to make it just a bit different? Like...My Enticing Icing...or something like that?

I use the following website for trademark/registered names of business in my search. It is the governements site for patents and trademarks and registered items. The link below is a direct link to the search for a trademark/registered name.
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=searchss&state=q55dua.1.1

This is their homepage where you can search for patents also.
http://www.uspto.gov/index.html

I use this site as a base for my search since these are all legal names-and in the US. There is a logon button on almost everypage however there are free search links there also-i have never created an account for the searches I am doing are just basic.

If I don't find the name I am looking for in the search then I go do more in depth research to see if there is another company out there that has the name, but they haven't registered yet.

Hope this helps.

Leily

P.S. I did a search for Enticing Icing, and in the US there is no name similiar to it-registered

I would also like to add another two cents worth.

The company I work for just received the Registered mark for the name/logo on the 1st of November. When they filed they had done all sorts of searching on the name. They only found one other name silimiar and they are a business in Canada.

They registered the name in the US, and to my knowledge the only way they could have not been able to get the registration is if the Company in Canada could prove that the company in the US would be endangering their business (ie-competeing for customers) or confusing customers on who to contact. However the company in Canada is a smaller one and creates a different product for the consumer than the company in the US.

Example would be like Hershey's could fight any other business in the world to not use their name b/c their name is recognized worldwide and the other company may cause damage to the name.

So not sure if this was more confusing or not-but thought it might give you some hope!

Leily

That makes a lot of sense leily. Thanks for the info

Thanks for the links...fantastic info!!

Thanks so much for that information. It really helps...now to find out where to register it .

Look in your phone directory in the Blue pages for the Canada Business service centre near you. You can register a business provincially or federally. If you go provincial, then someone in BC could possibly register the name there and if either of you ever decide to go national, then there's problems. Avoid this by going federal if you can.

You should get a name search for whatever new name you'd like, although to knock out the obviously taken one, I'd check out a few sites for business names already using whatever you come up with.

You could use that same name but there could be problems if the two of you are in the same sort of business (and I can't see them not being a cake place). It would be pointless to use a name already taken by a similar business even if they are American.

Besides, you want that intarweb space!!

Think of something new and clever, check the web to see if anyone else is using it. Even if there's no one on the web using it , that doesn't mean it isn't taken but if you run into a site with it, then that knocks that one out of the game and you won't waste your money searching for a name that's obviously not available.

I've been doing research on the business name. It's gonna cost $300 just to register it. It's gonna have to wait till after Christmas. I have to worry about that right now.

Thanks everyone for all the info. You are all great support.