How do i find out if my prospective business name is available?

How do I find out if a name is available for my business?

• I live in Ohio and I want to know if there is a website or organization I can call to find out if a certain name is available to use for my business. I am having a hard time coming up with something, but before I fill out the forms and send them in, I want to make sure the name I chose is available.

• Answer:

  http://www.uspto.gov is the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Business Names are typically trademarked. The USPTO has a searchable list of Federal Trademarks and each state also has statewide trademarks. The federal ones are more powerful and all encompassing. Search the federal ones online and ask at your town hall about the state ones. State trademarks or business names (DBA, doing business as) are much cheaper to apply for than federal, but may be all you need. You need to participate in interstate commerce to qualify for a federal trademark. It's also very important that whatever name you choose that there is a .com domain name available. Otherwise people may be confused or not able to find you on the internet. Dot com domains are the most valuable, and are getting to be very hard to find. I have been buying and selling domains for a while now and I specialize in photography and wedding domains. You can check out my website at http://www.photodomainnames.com and see if there are any that you are interested in. Prices may be negotiable depending upon the name you are interested in. With some domains selling for millions of dollars the time to buy is now before the prices climb too high! You can check (and buy) other domain names at 1and1.com and they are the cheapest and the best place online in my opinion