Legal Question in Intellectual Property in California

Re: stage name - trademark

It could be a trade name and your company name.

You should consult with a trademark attorney.

Re: stage name - trademark

Formal trademarks and service marks are assigned by class, as you seem to know. One application and one fee payment entitle you to protection of that name in one class of goods or services. Further, you can't get a permanent mark registration unless your goods or services are actually being sold in interstate commerce, which makes reserving a name for future use in a bunch of as-yet unknown classes expensive and time consuming.

In addition to federal trademark protection, a businessperson can get a lesser degree of protection by incorporating under that name and qualifying the corporation in other target states; by obtaining and using appropriate Web domain names; and by similar turf-staking including key trademark applications covering core products or services.

The laws are intentionally designed to prevent excessive turf-marking; the idea of a free market and open competition leads to a policy of not allowing anyone to hoard clever business names on the off chance that they might someday decide to use one or another of them.