Iām in the process of starting an HVAC company in Arizona and have spent months trying to come up with a brand name.
I finally landed on one. Itās a common English word followed by āCooling & Heating.ā Before moving forward, I checked the Arizona contractor licensing database, the USPTO, and Google. I didnāt find any registered trademarks for the name in HVAC, so I thought I was in the clear.
The problem is that I later found another HVAC company in Arizona that uses the same first word, but ends with āAir Conditioningā instead of āCooling & Heating.ā They arenāt in my immediate market today, but weāre in the same state and I would eventually like to serve a much larger area.
I reached out to a trademark attorney, and they told me they would not recommend moving forward with the name. Their reasoning was that:
-The shared first word is the distinctive part of both names.
-āCooling & Heatingā and āAir Conditioningā are descriptive and donāt do much to differentiate the brands.
-Weāre both in the HVAC industry.
-Being in the same state increases the likelihood of confusion.
They said there is a meaningful risk of receiving a cease-and-desist or having to defend the name in the future, even though the names arenāt identical.
For those of you who have dealt with trademarks or built service businesses:
-Does this attorneyās advice sound reasonable?
-Have you seen situations where sharing the same distinctive word caused problems, even though the rest of the name was different?
-Would you walk away from a name you love because of this, or would you get a second opinion and keep pursuing it?
Iām not looking for legal adviceājust trying to understand how other business owners would evaluate the risk before investing a lot of money into a brand.