Trademark your name?

Do bands trademark, or somehow put a claim on their name very often? If so, how do they do this?

Start here:

http://trademarkscanada.ca/tmfaqs.html

Don't waste your money this will be taken care of if and when you get a signed deal.

Too many bands waste money on this only to end up having to change their name or never make it very far anyway so - don't bother. Pick a name you think is unique, original and never used before - then spend your assets on other things like gear, touring, recording and let the trademark happen with your first record release.

9 out of 10 bands end up wasting their money on this and/or having to change their name anyway.

Most useful trademark move in music business:

band's name dot com

Good info, thanks all.

We fired our drummer last week. His FATHER then apparently went to his attorney and filed to register our band name or whatever. I guess he thinks this will keep us from preforming under the name, or that HE will show up and collect the paycheck at the end of the night. Keep in mind, we are grown men not high school kids. Its unfugginbelievable.

I heard it costs well over $1k to properly get it registered, so I'm not too worried, but I guess my lack of knowledge on the subject and it's legalities worries me a little.

We've been preforming under this name for 6 years now.

that is sad...but sometimes even adults act like juveniles...our second guitarist held our '.com' website when we fired him, and posted all sorts of BS on it. What can you do? let it go...we eventually were able to pick it up when he let it lapse.

But, if you guys have 6 years of history with the band name, I doubt a trademark will have any ill effect on your use of the name...do you have it as a website?

Plus, in order to get a TM, you have to demonstrate that the name is not in use for the same purpose in your geographical area, which, if you have any web presence, reviews, CD sales, etc, then it won't fly

Yes, we have the website. And the band has 6 years of local/regional press, cd's, merch, etc. We have a fairly large following for a local/regional act. Band/business is setup legally as a partnership I believe (singer & bassist). I only joined the band a year ago.

My singer's former band had a deal with MCA, managed by Wendy Dio, was playing arenas touring with Ronnie James Dio, then got sued over their name. Apparently a cover band in New Jersey or somewhere had been performing under the same name for several years. The cover/bar band apparently won.

Well, yes, when you reach a certain level, you need to make sure you have the TM. Had your singer's former band not played the tri-state area, there would have been no lawsuit...had they done an adequate TM search they could have worked something out in advance. This issue has been covered before in here. I would guess that the local band had adequate history and press that would lead a judge to believe they were in some way open to financial injury by having a band with the same name play in their region, which may have confused some of their following, or something similar.

Although I am not a lawyer, I deal with these types of issues almost daily in my industry. I would certainly advise your former drummer that any attempt to interfere with the band (since it is a legal partnership) or it's right to operate under the name would wind up in (small claims) court. You obviously have adequate history with the name, and the court's take a very dim view of vindictive idiots...except ex-wives...