Legal Question in Intellectual Property in New York

Re: legality of using a non-legal name in business advertising in place of real

Generally speaking, you can use a trade name other than the name of your company, provided that you file a dba certificate for that name in the county where your business was formed.

The problems may arise, however, if you use a name that causes a conflict with other trade names, trademarks and service marks. Any name that you intend to use in promoting, branding, marketing and selling your products and services should be cleared through a trademark search to avoid conflicts with pre-existing names that may be protected under the law. This would apply to the name you used as the name of the company or dba name. Your rights to those names in the context of trademarks can only be asserted once you start using them in commerce in connection with your goods or services (and ideally registered as trademarks). The fact that a certain name is your family name or has been cleared by the NYS Department of State as an available name for a company would typically not provide a good defense to a trademark infringement claim so exercise caution here.

If you need assistance with conducting trademark searches, clearing names, forming a company, and conducting e-commerce operations give me a call.

Please note that this response is in the nature of general information, is not legal advice and should not be relied upon as such.