Geographical Business Names and SEO

January 27, 2022

Fact –

“Having a registered business name or a company name does not, by itself, give you any intellectual property rights in that name.”*

A business name does not give you exclusive trading rights or ownership over that name.

Registering a particular name does not stop another person from registering a similar name. It also does not give you the exclusive right to use the name or part of the name.

In order to protect your business name you would need to obtain a trademark.

A trade mark needs to be capable of distinguishing your products or services from other traders to be accepted by IP Australia. Generally, you are not allowed to monopolise the name of a place or region for your business, unless you have significantly used the name over time.**  So if your business name is a service coupled with a geographical location you may have difficulty in obtaining your business name as a trademark.

Story Time

Every few years or so I have run into the situation where my clients competitors have complained about the SEO strategy that I have implemented on my clients website.

Say for example my client called “ABC Hairdressing” has two salons one located in Mars and the other in Jupiter. Each location for the salons has their own page on the website. When carrying out search engine optimisation on the website – I target key search terms.  On the “Mars” page I target the term “Mars hairdressing” (as after research, I find this is the most commonly searched term) and for the Jupiter Page, I follow the same principle “Jupiter Hairdressing”

The website gets crawled and it starts appearing in searches for the chosen keywords – Win for me and SEO!

But then….

A business by the name of “Jupiter Hairdressing” sends a complaint that we are providing misleading content as people are mistaking my clients business for theirs….ummm….No….

I feel here I should also state, that if you perform a search for the term  “Jupiter Hairdressing” the business with the registered business names appears first in the search every time, and my clients ABC Hairdressing “Jupiter Hairdressing” page appears under this – So seriously what are they even complaining about…..

So, the question is, is my client in the wrong? – according to the above from ASIC and IP Australia – No, we are well within our rights to use the term “Jupiter Hairdressing”, as they provide Hairdressing to the people of Jupiter. Further to this, It’s not deceptive as if you follow the link, my clients logo is plastered all over the page.

 

So my friends – I suggest that when registering a business name look at the name you are using, look at the legality of using it, look at the facts, look at your competitors in the market and focus on your own game rather than wasting the time of others.

 

 

*2022. [online] Available at: <https://asic.gov.au/for-business/registering-a-business-name/before-you-register-a-business-name/how-to-protect-your-business-name/> [Accessed 27 January 2022].

**2022. [online] Available at: <https://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/trade-marks/applying-for-a-trade-mark/decide-if-you-have-trade-mark/common-and-prohibited-signs> [Accessed 27 January 2022].