If I want to setup company for couple websites, do I need to setup couple companies for each site? or …?
By Yahoo User • Category: Do I Need It To Trademark?For example, If I have 3 site called abc.com, ijk.com and xyz.com. What will be the best protection? do I need to setup 3 companies and one for each site? or … I need to create trademark for each site with only one company setup? or any other suggestion? If I create a trademark for xyz.com, could other people still be able to setup a company called xyz.com INC?Thanks,Joe
You can set as many sites under one company as you want. Things get complicated if you have other investors and they are not investing equally in the different sites. In that case you would need different corporations. You also need to factor your state’s franchise tax into the decision because each corporation will be taxed at some rate. In California that is $800 per corp. Delaware starts at $25 but rapidly ramps that up with assets.With the single corporation there is the issue that the assets of all the sites are lumped together so a law suit against one site threatens them all. Obviously, this effect is risk based.Your Trademark question is a bit less than straight forward to answer. Basically once you have a “mark” registered there are limits as to how similar another mark can be. Some of the tests the Trademark Office uses include whether the applicant is in the same or similar business, the graphical as well as typographic similarity, and the potential for confusing the public. Of course you must first get your chosen mark registered and they will apply the same tests to your application. More information than you will ever want can be found at www.uspto.gov. Cheers.