Naming a new brand this year.Be prepared for a fight when using “entrepreneur” and 107 other ordinary words that could trigger a trademark lawsuit.

Somebody Is Already Watching the Name You Pick: 235 Challenges Over One Ordinary Word

A challenge can arrive after the packaging is printed, and the usual outcome is losing the name.

Since 2014, a company called Entrepreneur Media has filed 235 trademark oppositions. Thirty of those were against names that contain the word entrepreneur itself. Among them:

• THE KICKASS ENTREPRENEUR
• FEARLESS ENTREPRENEUR
• YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS
• BADASS ENTREPRENEUR

None of those founders picked an obscure name. They picked the most ordinary word available for what they did, which is what almost everybody does, and somebody was already watching it. The word is one of 108 ordinary words under active defense.

Some Ordinary Words Are Heavily Monitored

Owning a word as a trademark means owning it for particular products, not owning it in the dictionary. One company owns Monster for drinks while another owns Rogue for fitness equipment, and both will object when their word turns up on someone else's product.

Across challenges filed since 2018, 108 ordinary English words are each actively defended, drawing 998 challenges between them. Here is the full list, with each word's owner and the categories they cover.

Three Ways Founders Walk Into It

The marks these owners challenged are public, and they fall into three shapes. A shortlist can be checked against all three in an afternoon.

You fused it into another word

This is the most commonly challenged shape in the whole record. The Board looks at the part of a name that does the work, not the string of letters, so fusing somebody's word into a longer one changes the spelling and leaves the important part untouched.

Respelling does not help either. Names that sound the same are treated as the same, so swapping a letter buys nothing.

You borrowed the rhythm, not the word

Some watches defend a cadence rather than a single word. Not one of the marks below is the owner's phrase, and every one is close enough that a reader finishes it without being asked.

You assumed a different category would keep you clear

This is the shape founders least expect. Most of these owners list three or more unrelated categories on their watch. Read the middle column against the right one.

Duke licenses its name across apparel, electronics and merchandise, so that watch defends something real rather than reaching. These owners are not behaving unreasonably. A founder who reasons "they sell fuel, I sell frozen snacks" has used the wrong test.

What You Sell Moves the Odds More Than Anything Else: 1.7% of Kitchenware Names Get Challenged, Against 6.3% in Vape

The word is the first question. What you sell decides how hard anyone is looking.

The numbers below count challenges per 1,000 names that reached the public objection stage, using names filed between 2017 and 2021 so each one has had time to attract a challenge. Across 87 categories the middle of the pack sits at 28.5 per 1,000, which is 2.9%.

As percentages: a vape brand faces a 6.3% chance of being challenged, a kitchenware brand 1.7%. Both are minorities, and one is nearly four times the other.

Cannabis carries a 49.3 risk rate while its filing volume falls 48%: a shrinking category that stays dangerous for any single name in it. Blockchain and crypto pairs a 41.6 rate with 144% volume growth, rising on both counts at once.

Eighteen Categories Are Risky Enough to Earn a Lawyer in the Launch Budget

Eighteen categories sit at 35 per 1,000 or higher. Those are the ones where clearance work belongs in the launch budget rather than in the contingency column, and they sort into three groups that call for different levels of urgency.

Drinks, vape and tobacco: the highest odds on the board

Vape, energy drinks, tobacco and cigars occupy four of the top five slots, and three of the four are growing. An energy drink brand faces roughly double the median category's odds while filings in the category grow 58%. Naming conventions in these markets are worn thin, and the incumbents have both the budget and the habit of enforcing.

Supplements: the fastest-growing fight

Dietary supplements grew 92% in five years, vitamins 64% and protein powder 42%, with risk rates of 36.5, 40.1 and 41.6. This is the category a first-time Shopify seller enters most casually, often with a name chosen for how it reads on a label. The enforcement intensity does not match that casualness.

Apparel: where the naming space is most worn down

T-shirts drew 5,335 oppositions in five years and clothing 5,474, the two largest pools in the entire record. Their per-mark risk is moderate at 34.0 and 28.3, but hoodies and sweatshirts run 36.3 and activewear 39.3. Apparel is where most new stores start, which is exactly why the naming space is so worn down.

One Accusation Carries 82.6% of Every Filing

Across filings, one accusation does nearly all the work.

47% of filings claim more than one of these at once.

Likelihood of confusion, the one that decides most cases

This single claim appears in 82.6% of filings, and it turns on two questions: how close the two names are, and how close the two products are. Neither has to be identical. It does not require that anybody was actually confused, and it does not require that you had ever heard of the other brand. A challenger only has to persuade the Board that an ordinary buyer could mix the two up.

That is why the compound names earlier in this article lose. LUSHPOPO and Lush are not the same word, but they share the part a buyer would remember, and both sit in cosmetics.

Dilution, which only famous brands can reach for

Blurring at 21.2% and tarnishment at 6.7% are both dilution claims, and both are reserved for names famous enough that the public recognizes them with no context at all. Blurring argues that your use chips away at how strongly the name points to them. Tarnishment argues that your use drags their reputation somewhere they would rather not be. Neither requires any confusion between the products.

Either one on a filing means the company opposing you is large enough to argue in a hearing that its name is famous.

Abandonment and fraud, which attack the paperwork itself

Abandonment at 14.6% argues that a registration is no longer in genuine use, so it should not be blocking anybody. It shows up mostly in petitions to cancel a mark that is already registered rather than in oppositions against a new one. Fraud on the USPTO at 10.3% argues that somebody lied to obtain the registration in the first place, and it is difficult to prove because it requires showing intent rather than error.

False suggestion of a connection

At 5.4%, this one says your name implies a link to a person or an institution that never agreed to it. It is the claim a university, a sports league or a public figure reaches for, and it does not depend on selling anything similar.

The two claims you can rule out yourself

No use in commerce at 9.3% and no bona fide intent at 3.2% both mean the same thing: you listed products you do not sell. A store that claims every category it might one day enter gives a challenger a second reason to file, at no cost to them.

Most Founders Face This Without a Lawyer

Consumer physical goods run 40% to 48% without a lawyer. Technology and regulated services run 16% to 22%. Ecommerce sells consumer physical goods.

44% of challenged applicants never file any response at all, and a challenge nobody answers is decided without anyone reading the founder's side of it.

Almost all of that is settled before the name is chosen. What follows is the part that happens at a laptop, in an afternoon, and costs nothing.

Your Naming Checklist, Before the Labels Are Printed