Guides · monitoring · updated 2026-09-02

My app name is not trademarked. Am I protected at all?

Most app developers ship under a name nobody has registered. That is not the same as unprotected, and it is not the same as protected. Here is the honest version, level by level, as TakedownGPT shows it on every watch: registered, application pending, store guidelines only, exposed.

Level 1: exposed

No registration and nothing that proves you used the name first. The stores’ copycat rules still exist, but a complaint would be your word against another developer’s. The fix costs nothing: add your seller name to the watch, run the first check, and your own listing is captured with a date. That capture is what every complaint form asks for.

Level 2: store guidelines only

You use the name and can prove since when, but never filed it. App Store Review Guideline 4.1 (Copycats) lets Apple remove an app that copies another app’s name, icon or UI, and the App Store Content Dispute form takes a complaint from anyone who was there first. Google Play’s Impersonation policy removes apps that pass themselves off as another developer’s, reportable without a registration. In the US and the UK, use in trade also earns rights in the name itself (common law / Lanham Act § 43(a); passing off), enough to demand a rename.

What this level does not give you: Google Play’s trademark complaint form, which wants a registration number; any opposition on a trade mark register; and, in the EU, almost anything at all -- there, rights come from registration. And if the copycat registers the name first, the burden flips to you.

Level 3: application pending

You filed. The store rules above still carry the work; the register’s tools arrive with the registration. Put the application number on the watch as an own filing number so your own mark is never flagged as a conflict, and so status changes show up.

Level 4: registered

Every tool in the toolkit: store complaints on the registration rather than on a policy review, opposition against later filings on the register, cancellation of ones that slipped through, and the first element of a UDRP complaint against a look-alike domain. A registration protects its own territory: a USPTO mark does not stop an EU filing.

What it costs to move up

USPTO: USD 350 per class, filed electronically, 12 to 18 months to registration. EUIPO: EUR 850 for one class online, about four months if unopposed, and it covers all 27 EU states. UK IPO: GBP 170 for one class online, about four months. Software is usually class 9, a service around it class 42. These are the offices’ own fees for a filing you make yourself; an attorney adds to them and reduces the chance of a refusal you have to answer.

Where TakedownGPT fits

The watch tells you which level you are at and what the next cheapest step is, keeps your own listing as dated proof of use, and reads the USPTO, EUIPO and UK IPO registers so that a filing on your name by someone else reaches you inside the opposition window, not after. None of it is legal advice.