Protecting your name and brand from the company's launch

Quick answer. At launch, several names coexist: the company name (the official name of the company, protected nationally from registration, but only as a company name), the trade name (the name known to the public, protected through use over its area of activity only) and the trademark. Only a trademark filing with the INPI grants an exclusive right across the whole territory, for the goods and services targeted, for 10 years renewable indefinitely. Per the INPI fee schedule, the official fee is about 190 euros for the first class, plus about 40 euros per additional class. Before any filing, a prior-rights search is essential.

Protecting your name is one of the reflexes founders put off the most, until the day a competitor uses the same name, or files it as a trademark before them. Yet a company's different names are not equivalent: they follow distinct rules and do not offer the same protection. Trademark law falls under the French Intellectual Property Code (art. L711-1 and following), while the company name and the trade name follow other logics. Confusing these layers means believing you are protected when you are almost not. This article walks through the trade-offs to settle from launch, on a par with the choice of structure, so the decision is made knowingly rather than suffered after the fact.

A company bears several names that are not the same and do not protect in the same way. This is the first source of misunderstanding, because the founder often believes that simply "having a name" is enough.

The company name is the official name of the company, its legal-entity identity. It is mandatory, set in the articles, and protected nationally from registration, but only as a company name: it prevents another company from adopting the same corporate name, not a third party from using the name as a trademark for goods or services.

The trade name is the name under which the company is known to the public for its activity. Optional, it is protected through use and its scope is limited to the geographic area of activity and clientele. The same trade name can therefore coexist at the other end of France without conflict, as long as there is no risk of local confusion.

The sign, finally, designates the name placed on the premises and only counts in its nearby area. None of these signs protects a product or service name nationally. For that, only one tool really exists: the trademark.

A trademark filing with the INPI confers an exclusive right to exploit a name, a slogan or a logo. The trademark protects that sign for the designated goods and services, across the whole national territory, for a duration of 10 years renewable indefinitely. It is the only way to prevent a third party from using your name for a similar activity, anywhere in France, and to act through opposition or infringement. A registered logo enjoys the same protection as a name, provided it is distinctive.

The filing is made by classes of goods and services, under the international Nice classification, which has 45 (1 to 34 for goods, 35 to 45 for services, with class 45 covering legal services in particular). It is a modest protection investment relative to the asset it secures: a registered trademark becomes an intangible asset that can be recorded on the balance sheet, assigned, and that gains value with the company's reputation.

One trade-off comes up systematically: how many classes to file? Too few exposes you to a competitor filing the same name for a neighbouring activity; too broad raises the cost and weakens the trademark, which can be challenged for lack of genuine use after five years. The right reflex is to target the classes matching the real activity and its credible short-term extension, not the whole catalogue as a precaution.

Here, at a glance, is what each sign protects, how it is acquired and what it costs.

The INPI fee is only the visible part. To budget serious protection, it is better to reason in full cost, without limiting yourself to the official fee alone.

The official INPI filing fee is about 190 euros for the first class, plus about 40 euros per additional class (amounts to verify against the INPI fee schedule in force at the time of filing). A trademark on three classes thus comes to about 270 euros in fees alone. But filing without a preliminary study means filing blind.

In the files we coordinate, the realistic budget for a well-run protection revolves around three items:

These ranges are indicative and vary with the number of classes, the complexity of the name and the intellectual-property provider chosen. The message remains the same: securing a name at launch does not cost a fortune, but the fee alone is not enough to secure it properly. It is better to factor this item in from the financial forecast, rather than discovering it urgently after a conflict.

One prerequisite conditions the validity of the filing: the name's availability. Before filing a trademark, or even fixing a company name in the articles, you must check that the name does not reproduce an earlier trademark, company name or trade name for similar activities.

Filing a name already taken exposes you to an opposition procedure from the earlier holder, or even an infringement action, and to having to change everything after launch: sign, materials, domain name, acquired ranking. This prior-rights search is run on the INPI databases, but should not be limited to them: an active domain name, a company name not filed as a trademark, or earlier commercial use can also constitute an enforceable right. This is precisely the step that rushed founders neglect, and the one that costs the most when it has been skipped.

The INPI trademark protects only in France. For a project that targets several countries from the outset, or that aims to develop for export, the question of geographic scope arises from the start, without waiting for the first sales abroad.

The European Union trademark (filed with the EUIPO) covers all 27 member states in a single filing. The base cost is in the order of 850 euros for one class (to verify against the EUIPO fee schedule in force), with additional classes charged. For a young company that thinks Europe from launch, this is often the most efficient trade-off: one procedure, protection across the whole internal market.

The Madrid system (managed by WIPO) allows, from a base filing or registration, the extension of the trademark to a selection of countries via a single application. The cost depends on the number of countries and classes targeted, and often starts at several hundred euros on top of local fees. It becomes relevant as soon as a project targets several markets outside the European Union (the United States, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, for example).

Our view: for a purely national project, the INPI filing is enough. For a stated European ambition, the European Union trademark is generally the reference trade-off. The Madrid system is justified when the target market goes beyond Europe or when export is at the heart of the model. The decision criterion is not the current size, but the credible short- and medium-term ambition: filing too broad costs a lot for nothing, filing too narrow forces you to start over.

Our view: the trademark is the launch's most profitable protection investment#

Our firm Hayot Expertise observes, in incorporation files, that the most common mistake is to believe that registration is enough to lock the name. The company name protects, but weakly, and the trade name only counts in its area. For a few hundred euros, the trademark filing turns a vulnerable name into a nationally protected asset: in our view, it is one of the best cost-to-risk ratios of the entire launch.

We recommend a simple sequence: check availability, reserve the main domain name without waiting (it can be taken by a third party within minutes), then file the trademark for the useful classes. Protecting the name follows the same logic as choosing the structure, for example when arbitrating between sole proprietorship and a company, or when deciding whether to go solo or partner up: these are foundations to lay at the outset, and the accountant's role is to coordinate these decisions, alongside an intellectual-property partner when the file warrants it. That is the spirit of our legal advice to business leaders.

The underestimated risk: domain and trademark taken by a third party during the hesitation#

The risk founders underestimate is not legal, it is temporal. Between the moment a name is chosen and the moment it is filed, several months often pass: the time to finalise the articles, the logo, the website. During that window, the name circulates (business cards, social media, first clients) with no protection. An attentive competitor, or an opportunistic filer, can reserve the domain name or file the trademark during that drift. The founder then finds themselves operating under a name a third party controls. Securing the domain and filing early is not a luxury: it is what closes that window.

A founder had registered their company and launched their activity under a catchy name, without filing a trademark, convinced the company name protected them. The business started, the name began to be known to its clientele. A few months later, a competitor in the same sector filed this name as a trademark with the INPI and notified them to stop using it for its goods and services.

The company name, protected nationally, only counted as a corporate name: it did not prevent a trademark filing by a third party on the same sign. Lacking a sufficiently characterised enforceable earlier right, the founder preferred to settle rather than launch into uncertain litigation. The episode cost a name change, the overhaul of the materials and the loss of the reputation built. For their next project, they reversed the order: prior-rights search, domain reservation, then trademark filing, before any first communication. The initial protection cost, a few hundred euros, looked trivial against the cost of the forced name change.

In practice: the sequence to run from launch#

• Run a prior-rights search on the trademark, company name and domain databases before fixing the name in the articles.
• Immediately reserve the main domain name and the strategic extensions, even before the trademark filing.
• Identify the Nice classes matching your real activity and its credible short-term extension, without filing the whole catalogue.
• File the trademark online on the INPI website, then keep the filing receipt and date, which establish priority.
• If the ambition is European or international, arbitrate between the European Union trademark and the Madrid system before the first sales abroad.
• Set up monitoring of close filings and note the 10-year renewal deadline in your legal calendar.
• Make these choices coexist with the structure and tax setup of the project, for example during a kick-off meeting with your accountant.

• Believing registration protects the name as a trademark: it protects only the company name, not the use of the sign for goods and services.
• Filing after communicating: a name circulated without filing can be reserved by a third party during the launch phase.
• Choosing a descriptive or generic name: a sign that directly describes the product (for instance a purely common term for the sector) can be refused or weak, as it is not distinctive.
• Under-filing on classes: a single class when the activity covers several leaves the door open to a neighbouring filing.
• Forgetting renewal: the trademark falls into the public domain if it is not renewed at the 10-year deadline.
• Confusing domain name and trademark: reserving a domain creates no trademark right, and vice versa.
• Reasoning France-only when the project targets export: an INPI filing alone leaves the name free abroad, where a third party can pre-empt it.

These trade-offs fit into the overall preparation of the launch, on a par with the founder's cover, which must also be anticipated on the retirement and health side. To secure the whole, it is better to handle these questions with your accountant, whose role at launch goes beyond accounting alone, and to have the tax side of your structuring decisions validated through our corporate taxation support.