I am just starting off and would like to know if I should do a servicemark for National instead of state and local for my business name? I plain on working across state lines. If I did the servicemark would still need to fill an LLC for my state or any other state I work in? Please help, I'm going creazy!!!

A service mark has nothing to do with how you set up your business -- LLC, sole proprietorship, etc. You should do this regardless of whether you file a service mark or not.

A service mark protects your intellectual property - your company name/logo. This of course, does not guarantee that someone will not steal your name/logo - it simply establishes a time line of when you first started to use the name/logo for commerce & your right to claim said name/logo as yours.

My attorney, who is not an intellectual property rights specialist, told me that often times registering your mark with your state is good enough to establish that time line. I filed a state trademark for $50 online. It was very easy to do.

Some links to help you:

Service Mark

U.S. Patent & Trademark Office

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Lezly Harrison
Laserdog Productions - Code that Doesn't Bite

Great info from Lezly - here are a few additional links that might help you better understand the LLC, etc.

LLC [Limited Liability Corporation] Basics - archived chat with Lily Chambers

Best Legal Structure for Small Businesses

Sole Proprietor vs LLC

In fact, if you browse this entire section General Legal Topics, there are lots of conversations on this topic.

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