Protecting a Name During Start Up Phase
Someone on LinkedIn posted a question about how you protect a name when you are in early start up phases and working in stealth mode. I wasn't sure if the stealth mode also meant the founders were still employed, and maybe even planning on competing with their employer, which is a no-no, but here's my response.
First I wouldn't be posting here, where although the name may be stealth, the fact of the business starting, isn't. I sure hope you're not competing with your current employer, or you could have bigger problems than someone stealing your name.
Second, in the US (and California) rights to a name belong to whoever "uses it in commerce" first. Registration doesn't give you the rights - using the name does. Registration just lets more people know to keep their hands off (and gives you some procedural advantages too.)
But it's a complicated situation. Having rights to the name, and making sure someone bigger with more resources doesn't use it are often very different.
If you were to use the name (fictitious name statement or registration aside) to order something - business cards, a book, anything, you would have used the name in commerce and could say that was your first day of use.
But if no one knows you're claiming it - and someone then thinks it up themselves and uses it - you're still going to have a nice legal bill to get them to stop. So using it in public as well as registering it - helps put the world on notice that it's yours.
So your stealth mode and notifying people not to use the name are at odds.
When you combine it with the fact that perhaps these partners are working for someone now and might not want it known that they are doing so (and might even be in violation of their duty not to compete directly with the company paying their salary), and you have a stick situation, that doesn't lend itself to quick answers.
Those of us who advise start ups, and even "pre-start ups" can usually come up with a plan, but the plan will not be the same for each company.
