Answer
Someone registered my business name. What can I do?
Lawyers call this: priority · opposition · cancellation · 15 U.S.C. §§ 1063, 1064
Short answer
A registration does not wipe out an earlier user. In the United States, trademark rights start with use in business, not with filing. If you sold goods or services under the name before the other party’s filing date, you may have the better claim, and you may be able to stop or cancel their registration.
What you can do depends on timing. A pending application can be opposed. A registration can be challenged by a petition to cancel, and a claim based on earlier use generally has to be brought within five years of registration. In the area where you were already using the name, federal law generally preserves your right to keep using it.
What changes the answer
- Who used the name first, and for what
- Priority goes to whoever first used the name as a brand for related goods or services. Forming an LLC or filing an assumed name under the name does not by itself create trademark rights.
- The other party's dates
- If their application ends in a registration on the Principal Register, their filing date counts as a nationwide use date. That date does not beat you if you used the name before it. They can also try to prove actual use earlier than their filing.
- Where the application or registration stands
- Before publication, during the 30-day opposition window, and after registration are three different situations with three different tools.
- How long the registration has existed
- A claim of earlier use and confusion must generally be filed within five years of the registration date. Some grounds, such as abandonment or fraud, can be raised at any time.
- How far your use reaches
- Earlier rights you never registered are strongest where you actually did business. They may not stop the registrant everywhere else.
The rule
Once a mark is registered on the Principal Register, the application’s filing date counts as nationwide constructive use, with priority over most others. 15 U.S.C. § 1057(c). The filing date gives no priority until registration, and it does not prevail against someone who used the mark, or filed an application that later registers, before that date. Id.
Anyone who believes a registration would damage them may oppose it within 30 days after the mark is published for opposition. The period can be extended on a request filed before it runs out. 15 U.S.C. § 1063(a). After registration, a petition to cancel on grounds such as priority and likelihood of confusion must be filed within five years of the registration date. 15 U.S.C. § 1064(1). Some grounds have no deadline, including that the mark has become generic, has been abandoned, or was registered by fraud. 15 U.S.C. § 1064(3). Both proceedings go to the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, and the fee is $600 per class. 37 C.F.R. § 2.6 (2026).
A letter of protest is a cheaper step, but it is narrow. It lets a third party send evidence to the examining attorney before publication or within 30 days after it, for $150 per application. 37 C.F.R. §§ 2.6, 2.149 (2026). The USPTO will not consider a letter of protest based on common-law prior use. It works only if you can point to your own registration or earlier pending application, or to another legal ground for refusal.
Even a registration that cannot be cancelled does not reach everything. Someone who adopted the name without knowing of the registrant’s use, and used it continuously from before the registrant’s filing date, keeps a defense for the area where that continuous use is proved. 15 U.S.C. § 1115(b)(5); see also 15 U.S.C. § 1065.
Go deeper
Priority decides most of these disputes. The guide covers how dates are proved and what evidence carries.
What to do next
Find the other party’s record in the USPTO’s database and note three dates: filing, publication and registration. Then gather proof of your own first use with dates, such as invoices, signage, dated web pages and advertising. Your earliest provable date is the number that matters.
If the application has not yet been published, and your only claim is earlier use, watch for publication and be ready to oppose. If you already hold a registration or earlier application of your own, a letter of protest may be worth filing now.
You can collect the dates and the evidence yourself. Filing an opposition or cancellation is litigation before the Board, with pleadings, discovery and deadlines, and that is where a lawyer earns the fee. See the answer on opposition and cancellation.
If you have earlier use and a deadline in view, Valet Law, PLLC can compare the dates and tell you whether opposition, cancellation or coexistence is the better path.
Attorney review is provided by Valet Law, PLLC, a law firm separate from Trademark Valet, LLC. Keep confidential facts out of public tools. Your first message to Valet Law should identify the parties and the general issue only. Wait until Valet Law confirms it can discuss the matter before sending confidential details.
Who checked this
Reviewed and approved by Brandon Leavitt on 2026-10-02.
General information about how trademark law works. It is not legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not make anyone your lawyer.