The mobile food industry is our passion and we are always looking for ways to assist food truck vendors as well as the customers they feed. From time to time we run polls to gain industry information that truck owners can use to help better their customer service and the options that they provide to the communities that they serve. Other times our polls are set to find out general information “we” want to know.

This week we are interested in finding out if food truck vendor have taken the time to research their mobile food business names in regards to trademarks.

Because of the recent discussion coming out of Indianapolis and the food truck Little Eataly. We want to know what percentage of mobile food vendors have done the necessary research to protect themselves.

[poll id=”64″]

If you’ve answered “No”, please be advised. A great name for a food truck is worthless if someone else already has laid claim to it. Start with some free resources like Trademarkia.com or USPTO.gov to do a cursory search to see if the name is already in use. Then, hire a trademark attorney to do a more thorough screening, and if the name isn’t taken, to register it with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Getting it right the first time will save you both a lot of time and money.