How Creators Protect Their Name, Brand, and Likeness

Creators often treat a name, a handle, a logo, and a face as one asset. Audiences do that too. The law does not. A trademark is about who people think is the source of a product or a service. A right of publicity, where a state recognizes one, is about commercial use of a person’s identity. A platform rule is a contract with that platform. Mixing them up is how people spend money on the wrong filing, or wait until a copycat has already shipped merch.

This page is written for creators and influencers in the United States. Creator trademark help is the service page that sits next to this guide. If you are an athlete or a musician, start with the athlete NIL guide or the musician page, then come back for the parts that overlap.

The name people already use

The USPTO describes a trademark as a word, phrase, symbol, design, or combination that identifies your goods or services and distinguishes them from someone else’s. The same office is clear about a common mistake: a trademark does not give you ownership of a word in general. It covers how that word is used with the goods or services in the registration. A logo for one kind of product does not automatically stop a similar logo on unrelated products. Read the USPTO’s own explanation of what a trademark is.

For a creator, the “goods or services” might be entertainment, a clothing line, a course, a podcast, or a downloadable product. The name on the account is a candidate for a trademark only if it does that identifying job. A personal name can do it. A coined handle can do it. A phrase that simply describes the content (“daily makeup tips”) is a weaker candidate, because the USPTO treats merely descriptive wording as harder to protect.

Two federal rules matter as soon as the mark is a person’s name. Under 15 U.S.C. § 1052(c), a mark that consists of or comprises a name, portrait, or signature identifying a particular living individual is refused unless that person gives written consent. Under § 1052(e)(4), a mark that is “primarily merely a surname” can also be refused. Section 1052(f) allows some of those refusals to be overcome if the mark has become distinctive of the applicant’s goods in commerce. The statute says the USPTO may accept five years of substantially exclusive and continuous use as prima facie evidence of that distinctiveness. It does not say five years guarantees a registration.

Consent for your own name is yours to give. A name that identifies someone else needs that person’s consent. The owner on the application should be the person or company that will own the brand.

A handle is an account. A trademark is a brand right.

The platform issues the username. It can suspend it, reclaim it, or allow a lookalike spelling. That relationship is the platform’s terms, not a USPTO registration. Owning @yourname does not create a trademark, and a trademark filing does not force a platform to hand over a handle.

What you can do is apply to register the name itself for the goods and services you actually offer. The step by step of eligibility, classes, and price is in how to trademark a username or brand name. Use this page for the wider picture, and that page before you choose classes.

What a US registration does

You can own an unregistered trademark through use. The USPTO calls those common-law rights, and they are limited to the geographic area where you are actually using the mark. A federal registration is optional. The USPTO lists the reasons people still file: the mark shows up in the public database, you get a legal presumption of ownership and of the right to use the mark, you can use the registration as a basis for filing abroad, you can sue in federal court, you may use the ® symbol for the listed goods and services, and you can record the registration with U.S. Customs and Border Protection to stop infringing imports. The USPTO is not an enforcement agency. You still have to pursue infringers yourself. That list is from why register your trademark.

You may use TM for goods, or SM for services, without a registration. You may use ® only after registration, and only for the goods or services in that registration. The registration can last if you keep using the mark and file maintenance, including a filing after five years. The USPTO’s processing times change, so this guide does not quote a number of months.

What a trademark does not do

A registration covers the listed goods and services. It leaves copyright in your videos and photos, patent law, and your contracts with sponsors and platforms where they are. It also leaves a deepfake that never uses your name as a brand.

It is also territorial. A USPTO registration covers the United States and its territories. It does not cover the United Kingdom or the European Union. The USPTO is explicit that there is no worldwide trademark registration. Other countries are separate applications. If your audience, merch, or sponsors sit in more than one country, plan those filings on purpose. Start with the United States registration page for the US price and process on this site.

A search of the federal register is not the whole clearance. The USPTO says that database does not include common-law users who never filed, and it encourages a wider search of the internet, state trademark records, and business-name records. A free name check is a useful first look. It is not a legal opinion that the name is clear.

Right of publicity, in plain terms

Publicity rights are mostly state law in the United States. There is no single federal statute, currently in force, that gives every person a nationwide right to control commercial use of their face or voice. Some states have statutes. Some rely more on court decisions. Some cover voice expressly. Some are narrower. The state where you live, the state where the use happened, and the kind of use can all matter. This guide will not pretend those rules are uniform.

Tennessee is the clearest current example because the state wrote AI voice into the statute. On March 21, 2024, Governor Bill Lee signed the Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security Act, the ELVIS Act. His office described it as an update to Tennessee’s Protection of Personal Rights law so that voice is protected from AI misuse, alongside name, image, and likeness. The current definition in Tenn. Code Ann. § 47-25-1102 says “voice” means a sound readily identifiable and attributable to a particular individual, whether it is the actual voice or a simulation. The history line on that section notes 2024, chapter 588. That is a Tennessee law. It is not a national one.

Congress has a pending bill, the NO FAKES Act of 2026 (S. 4591). It has not become law. The status, the Congressional Research Service summary, and the limits of that summary are in protecting your voice and likeness from AI deepfakes.

Deepfakes and AI clones

A fake sponsorship post, a cloned store, and a synthetic video raise different reports. If someone is selling merch under your name, or running an account that presents itself as you, a trademark registration is one of the documents platforms ask for when the complaint is about a brand. If someone has copied a specific photo or video you own, that is closer to copyright, and platforms run a separate copyright process. If someone has generated a new face or voice that evokes you, the closer legal tools are publicity law, impersonation rules, and the platform’s own synthetic-media policy. A trademark can still matter if the clone also uses your name in a way that suggests you approved the product.

Lanham Act § 43(a) covers a false or misleading representation likely to cause confusion about affiliation or sponsorship. Whether a clip meets that test depends on the facts. Save the URL, the date, and a screenshot before you report it.

Practical steps

1. Write down the exact name, the handle without the @, any nickname, the logo, and any phrase fans already associate with you. Note which of those you want to own.
2. List what you sell or provide in ordinary language: videos, live shows, merch, a course, a membership, a software tool. Classes follow that list. This site’s plain-language map puts clothing in class 25, entertainment and education in class 41, electronics and software in class 9, and advertising or retail services in class 35. The USPTO requires a specific identification, not a vibe. See the classification guide.
3. Run a free name check on the exact string and on obvious misspellings. Then look beyond the register, the way the USPTO suggests, because unregistered users will not all appear there.
4. Decide the owner. A personal application and a company application are different. Changing the owner later is a separate filing, not a casual edit.
5. Keep evidence of use: dated posts, product pages, invoices, sponsorship agreements, and packaging. A use-based application needs an example of the mark used with the goods or services. An intent-to-use application is for a real plan to use it, and the USPTO has separate forms to allege use later.
6. For a deepfake or a fake account, preserve the evidence and use the platform report that matches the harm. Read the voice-and-likeness guide before you assume a trademark filing is the whole response.

When to file

File when the name is in use with specific goods or services, or when you have a bona fide intention to use it that way. The USPTO’s application system distinguishes a use-based filing from an intent-to-use filing. Both still require a real connection to goods or services. “I might want the name someday” is not a plan.

Useful moments are a first merch drop, a paid membership, a brand deal that puts your name on a product, and the appearance of a similar name in your category. Common-law rights stay geographically limited until you have a federal registration. You do not need a large following. You do need a name that functions as a brand. Search before you file a name someone else already uses on related goods. The process guide covers the sequence.

If you work across borders

A US sponsorship and a UK sponsorship are two trademark maps. Publicity rules differ outside the United States as well. The United States, United Kingdom, and European Union pages list published prices. This guide does not restate them.

Related reading

• How to trademark a username or brand name
• Protecting your voice and likeness from AI deepfakes
• Athlete NIL protection
• AI voice cloning and Drake
• Trademark protection for creators · for athletes · for musicians

Sources

• USPTO, “What is a trademark?”
• USPTO, “Why register your trademark?”
• 15 U.S.C. § 1052
• 15 U.S.C. § 1125
• Tennessee governor’s office, ELVIS Act signing, March 21, 2024
• Tenn. Code Ann. § 47-25-1102 (voice includes a simulation; history cites 2024, ch. 588)
• Congress.gov, S. 4591, NO FAKES Act of 2026

Frequently asked questions