Naming
What a real name screen costs you in candidates
Sixty-one percent die before presentation. Here is exactly what we check and in what order.
Brand Studio · Louisville, KY · Est. 2014
We kill names clients have already fallen for.
Harborpoint is a brand studio in Louisville. Every name we present has been screened for trademark conflicts, domain availability, and existing use before you ever see it. We publish how many candidates die in that screen — because the alternative is presenting a name you cannot legally own.
- Years in Louisville
- 11
- Naming projects
- 118
- Candidates killed at screen
- 61%
- Killed after presenting
- 9
Founded 2014
Plus 340 identity projects
Before any client sees them
In eleven years
01 — The problem
The best name in the room is usually taken.
A studio presents five names. The room falls in love with one. Three weeks later a trademark attorney finds a registered mark in the same class, the domain is held by a squatter wanting $40,000, and an unrelated company in Ohio has been trading under it since 2009. The client is now emotionally committed to a name they cannot have.
Screening before presentation is slow, expensive, and invisible. It is far easier to present whatever sounds good and let the client's attorney find the problems later, at which point the studio has already been paid and the failure belongs to somebody else.
So most naming work is presented unscreened. Not dishonestly — it is simply that nobody asks what happened to the candidates you never saw, and the cost of skipping the check lands on the client months afterwards.
We screen every candidate before presenting it: USPTO search in the relevant classes, domain and social availability, common-law use, and a plain search for anyone already trading under it. Sixty-one percent of our candidates die there. Nine have died after presentation in eleven years, and each one is on the record.
61% of naming candidates die in the screen. Clients never see them, which is the point.
It is easier to present whatever sounds good and let the client's attorney find the problems later.
02 — The record
Where names die.
Name clearance — last twelve monthsCandidates eliminated at screen, by cause, before presentation
Registered mark in the same classDirect USPTO conflict. Non-negotiable and the largest cause.84 names
38%
Existing common-law useSomeone trading under it without registration. Still a real problem.51 names
23%
Domain held or priced absurdlySquatters, or an owner wanting five figures. We will not present these.42 names
19%
Too close to a competitorLegally clear, commercially foolish. We kill these on judgement.29 names
13%
Bad in another language or marketMatters for clients who export, and Louisville has more of those than people expect.15 names
7%
Survived to presentationRoughly two in five. Those are the names you actually see.39% of all
39%
Nine names have died after we presented them, each because our screen missed something — usually common-law use by a small business with no web presence. Every one of those is re-named at our cost, and the nine are listed in our work record rather than quietly forgotten.
03 — Selected work
Eleven years across the Ohio Valley.
04 — How we work
Screening happens before the presentation.
01
Every candidate screened before you see it
USPTO in the relevant classes, domain and social, common-law use, and an honest look at who is already trading under it.
02
Post-presentation failures are our cost
Nine in eleven years. We re-name at our expense and list the failure in our work record.
03
We are not attorneys and we say so
Our screen is thorough and it is not a legal opinion. Every naming engagement ends with a recommendation to have counsel clear the final choice.
04
We will tell you the name is fine
Roughly one branding enquiry in seven concludes the existing name is sound and the problem is elsewhere.
05
Source files and marks are yours
Editable files, font licences in your name, and a filed-ready mark package at handover.
06 — What this costs us
Screening is unbillable work.
Clients pay for names they see. They do not pay for the 61% that died in screening, which is where most of the hours actually go. A studio skipping that step is materially more profitable per project.
Re-naming at our own cost has happened nine times and each one is several weeks of unpaid work.
It has also never cost a client a rebrand. Not one Harborpoint name has been abandoned after launch over a conflict, which is the only outcome this practice is really about.
Was your name ever cleared?
Not by the studio that presented it. Screened before you were shown it.