whats the diff between trademark and ip trade mark and then registered business name? Btw thanks for that info
Trademark comes from IP Australia, so I guess they are the same. You can register a business name and they don't check for trademarks on the name. They only check for registered business names for the combination of words that you give them. Here is my example. I wanted the name "Smooch", for my lingerie label. I did a search of business names and there were a couple of businesses with the name "Smooch something", and one called "Smooch", but there were no "Smooch Lingerie". I registered the business name "Smooch Lingerie", and they did their check and it was all fine.
Anyway, long story short, I later discovered that there was a trademarked company in the area of fashion called "Smooch". I could have operated as a registered business "Smooch Lingerie", but I couldn't trademark it because lingerie fits into clothing category, and Smooch was already trademarked there. Down the line, if my brand had become well known, the owner of the "Smooch" trademark, could say that they did not want me to use "Smooch" anymore, and my whole branding wold have to change. If they had been "Smooch" in a different category, it might have been different.
So, I changed the name to Lady Smooch and had to pay for everything again plus I have now trademarked the name.
If you are choosing a combination of words, then you will be more likely to have an original name. Because I was really just using the one word, it's more likely that someone will have thought of it before and trademarked it.
Hope that makes sense.