KCBS Membership Question

You could contact them at membership@kcbs.us to see what they have to say.

I know that my wife and I are members on a family plan because we support the activities of the organization and want to support it financially.

It is not a requirement to be a KCBS member for your team to compete in KCBS sanctioned contests. Adding your team name to the list does not guarantee that your team name will not be used - it helps. Most teams look for their chosen team name and if they find that it's already in use, then they choose another name. But this is not guaranteed.

The only legally defensible way to absolutely ensure no other team uses your name is to form a business entity and submit a trademark registration with your state.

http://www.dos.ny.gov/forms/corporations/0241-f-l-a.pdf

Most folks aren't all that serious, so they find 'registering' their team name at the KCBS web site helps achieve their goal for a relatively small amount of money.

Hope this helps -

We originally had a family membership because we both needed to be KCBS members to judge. We don't judge much anymore, but I just keep renewing the family membership.