The gap, the search and the classes that decide what you actually own.
Registering a company doesn’t give you ownership over the name. Only a registered trademark does that. So we got an expert in to show us how it’s done…
Jacques Stemmet is a senior associate at Dommisse Attorneys, where he runs the IP and trademark practice. He’s registered and defended a lot of SA brands — and seen plenty of founders leave it until someone forces the issue.
The move: register the trademark, don’t rely on the company name
A company registration and a trademark are two completely different things. The first says the company exists. The second gives you the exclusive right to a brand in the categories you trade in, and the power to stop others from using it.
“Registering a company name doesn’t give you brand protection. A trademark is what gives you the exclusive right to use it and to stop others.”
How to protect your brand with a trademark
1. Search before you fall in love with the name
Before you file (ideally before you commit to the name at all) search the trademarks register to check nobody already holds it in your categories. Founders skip this and build a whole brand on a name that was never available.
A clash found early is a naming decision. The same clash found after launch is a rebrand, a legal fight, or both. The search is the cheapest step and the one that saves the most pain.
2. Decide what kind of mark you’re protecting
A trademark can protect different things, and you choose which. A word mark protects the name itself, in any styling; the strongest, most flexible protection. A logo or device mark protects a specific visual. A combined mark protects the two together.
For most founders, the word mark is the priority, because it protects the name, however it’s written. If your logo is also distinctive and central to the brand, protect that too — but lead with the name.
3. File in the right classes for what you actually do
Trademarks aren’t blanket; they’re registered in classes, and there are 45 of them covering different types of goods and services. Your protection only extends to the classes you file in. Pick the classes that match what your business actually does now and plausibly will soon.
Register a software brand only in a goods class, and you may find you’ve left the services side of your own business unprotected. The classes you choose are the exact borders of what you own; draw them to fit the business.
4. File locally first, then extend country by country
Trademark protection is territorial; an SA registration protects you in SA, not beyond it. If you’re selling into other markets, or plan to, you need to protect the brand in each of those countries too.
Start with the SA filing to lock down your home market, then extend into the specific countries that matter for your expansion. Do it deliberately and in step with where the business is actually going, rather than trying to cover the world on day one.
The big payoff
Register the right marks in the right classes and your brand becomes something you own and can defend, not just a name you happen to be using. You can stop copycats, you protect the equity you’re building into the name, and you remove one more gap a buyer or investor would flag at due diligence.
It costs you a search and a filing while the name is still yours to secure. It saves you the rebrand or the legal fight that comes from discovering, too late, that the brand was never really yours.
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Want the full playbook?
This is one piece of What You Own vs What You Think You Own, Jacques’s full masterclass inside the Founder Collab. The full session walks through the complete system for proving you own your IP:
The full IP Control Stack: the five layers that decide whether your ownership holds up
How to actually own the code you paid a contractor to build
How free AI tools can quietly destroy your trade secrets and the usage policy that prevents it
When to use a patent, a trade secret or a trademark, and how to let your business model decide
What “good enough” IP hygiene looks like at pre-seed, seed and growth stage
You’ll also get access to 40+ other masterclasses from SA founders and operators on sales, fundraising, UX, paid media and more inside The Founder Collab.
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