Be sure that you can obtain a trademark for your name from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (uspto.gov).
Be aware of the "gotchas" in what are considered acceptable trademarks.
For instance, under U.S. law, a "geographically (mis)-descriptive" trade name is often very difficult to trademark.
Furthermore, trademarks are often not addressed by OSI-approved open-source licenses (The GPL, for example). Therefore, obtaining a trademark for your open-source project can be a very effective way of de-comoditizing your open source project, achieving containment of forks, and building a revenue-generating business around your code base. Example: Red Hat vs Centos.
This is an excellent point. Trademarks are very important. We had to buy "IM Safe" as a trademark from a public company which had acquired the trademark in one of their acquisitions. They didn't even know they had it.
Trademarks are a tricky beast, and one that can get you a cease and desist letter from a lawyer, and I hate getting mail from lawyers.
Be sure that you can obtain a trademark for your name from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (uspto.gov).
Be aware of the "gotchas" in what are considered acceptable trademarks.
For instance, under U.S. law, a "geographically (mis)-descriptive" trade name is often very difficult to trademark.
Furthermore, trademarks are often not addressed by OSI-approved open-source licenses (The GPL, for example). Therefore, obtaining a trademark for your open-source project can be a very effective way of de-comoditizing your open source project, achieving containment of forks, and building a revenue-generating business around your code base. Example: Red Hat vs Centos.
Own your namespace.