Today the dilemma which surrounds every startups in India is of giving a unique name to their company. Because there are frequent instances whereby the name which they profess to give it is already being registered under the Companies Act, 2013 which debars them for giving the same name to their own company. Thus there arises an issue as to what name should a company have in order to get incorporated under the Companies Act, 2013 which is unique and not being earlier registered earlier under the Act. This issue can be resolved by way checking Availability of Company Name but before this there is a need to do a proper analysis of certain basic principles associated with the issue which are being hereby referred to along with the issue being resolved.
I. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN COMPANY NAME AND A BRAND NAME
The main point of difference between a company name and a brand name according to my friends at Houston seo is that ‘company’ refers to an organization which is involved manufacturing and marketing of goods and services while brand is the application of the image of the company on the product. In reality there are chances that it might not overlap each other for instance Snapdeal is a brand name in ecommerce industry but their company or business name is “Jasper Infotech Private Limited”
II. BASIC TERMS WHICH ONE NEEDS TO KNOW WHILE SEARCHING FOR A COMPANY NAME
• MCA- Ministry of Corporate Affairs, the ministry is particularly concerned with administration of Companies Act, 2013
• LLP- Limited Liability Partnership, it is a partnership in which some or all partners (depending on the jurisdiction) have limited liabilities based on the capital contributed by them at the time of incorporation of partnership.
• ROC- Registrar of Companies, they are primary vested with the duty of registering companies and LLPs in the respective states and the Union Territories and ensuring that such companies and LLPs comply with statutory requirements under the Act
• CIN- Corporate Identification Number, it is a 21 digits alpha-numeric code / number issued to every company incorporated in India when it gets registered by Registrar of Companies (ROC) located in various states of India.
III. PRECAUTIONS THAT NEED TO BE TAKEN AS PRESCRIBED UNDER COMPANIES (NAME AVALIBILITY) RULES, 2011
There are various precautions which are prescribed under the Companies (name availability) Rules, 2011 the gist of which is highlighted below
• As per the provisions of the rules no company is to be registered with a name which resembles with any other company already registered under the Companies Act 2013 or any trademark which is the subject of application or has been registered under the Trade Marks Act 1999.
• That the applicant should search facilities available on the portal of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA)
• The name as proposed by the applicant should not violate any of the provisions of Emblems and Names (Prevention of Improper Use) Act, 1950
• The name as proposed by the applicant should not be offensive to any section of people nor should it contain any profanity or words or phrases that are generally considered a slur against an ethnic group, religion, gender or heredity;
IV. PROCEDURE FOR CHECKING AVAILABILITY OF A COMPANY NAME
For checking the name of the company already registered one needs to visit the website of ministry of corporate affairs for which the link is www.mca.gov.in, thereafter a step by step procedure needs to be followed which is being highlighted by ministry of corporate affairs and is being referred below.
• Click the MCA Services tab. The list of MCA Services is displayed.
• Under the Company Services, click the Check Company Name menu. The Check Company or LLP Name page is displayed.
• In the Company or LLP Name field, enter the name to be searched. You can enter up to six names to be searched. To add another name, click the Add More Names button. A blank field is populated under the Company or LLP Name field. Enter a second name that you want to search. Similarly, you can add up to six names to be searched by using the Add More Names button functionality.
• In the Activity Names field, enter the main business of the company or LLP to be searched. Some example of activities are agriculture, construction, finance etc. Entering activity narrows the search results.
• Click the Search button. The company/ LLP names are displayed with brief registration details.
V. PROCEDURE TO CHECK WHETHER COMPANY IS TRADEMARKED OR NOT
• If Company name is available then one will have to checkout Indian Government Trademark Registration data which helps to tell us about the brand name whether it is being already registered or not.
• For this purpose one can check whether company is trademarked or not from the official website of Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Department of Industrial Policy, Controller General of Patents Design &Trade Marks and the link for which is http://ipindiaonline.gov.in/tmrpublicsearch/frmmain.aspx#.
• There one can search through three options mainly wordmark, Vienna code and phonetic.
• Apart from this there are forty five different classes of trademark which are assigned numbers from 1 to 45 one can access them by clicking on the option class details on the above mentioned link.
• Once it is being decided as to which class no. ones goods or service belong to he can easily search it by placing the class no. in class option as being highlighted in the above picture.
• And eventually if all the options are being filled properly you will get the decided results.
VI. CONCLUSION
Thus this the methodology which each applicant should adopt while searching for the availability of the company name, while choosing a name for the company the applicant should always keep in mind that it should be unique and pertinent to the theme of the business. Also it is advisable to all the sole proprietorship and partnership firm to have a check on the availability of name because a situation may arise in future where the firms business is growing at a great pace and that time it will have to convert it into a company but due to non-availability of the name it can suffer a serious setback in terms of his past goodwill, brand etc. Thus it is ideal to check availability of company name with the MCA and trademark database.
Author: This blog is written by Mr. Rohitesh Tak, a passionate blogger & intern at Aapka Consultant.
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