You can change your business organization type. Generally speaking, it's easier to go from a general partnership or a sole proprietorship to one of the corporate forms, either a limited liability company or corporation, than it is to take a limited liability company and transfer it over to a corporation. Those types of transitions involve dissolving one entity and forming a new entity. They're much more complicated.

Usually, you will have to sign a non-compete when you are the seller of the business. This protects the buyer from you going out and then opening the same business that you just sold to the buyer.

When a business is first starting, oftentimes cashflow is a big concern. Therefore, I think the priority should be that you select the appropriate business entity first. Then look at having contracts drafted for your business that will protect the assets of your business then, further down the road you can consider protecting your intellectual property through trademarks.

The first thing you should do is hire an attorney to send the infringer a cease and desist letter. Many times, this will alert the infringer to the fact that they're infringing on what you consider to be your exclusive mark, and that will stop at that point. If it continues, it will, at a minimum, put them on notice that they are infringing your mark and that continued infringement will result in legal action.

Offers to contract can be accepted, pursuant to the way the offer is made. How the acceptance is stipulated in the offer. If the offer includes performance, one of the ways to accept the contract is to begin that performance as well.

An offer can be rejected by specifically rejecting the offer, stating specifically in a correspondence that you're not accepting the offer or to simply let the offer expire pursuant to its terms.

Yes, covenants not to compete are enforceable, as long as they're reasonable in terms of scope and duration.

Generally speaking, it's better to sell assets and goodwill than to sell the shares of your company. This is to protect the buyer from unexpected legal liabilities that may carry over from the previous organization, and it cuts off liability for the seller from liabilities that might arise from the conduct of the business by the buyer.

You will definitely want to do a search on the trademark database to see if there are similar marks to the one that you're interested in registering, because once you file that application, it is non-refundable. If the initial cut of your application by the examining attorney shows a similar mark, you will not get your mark registered and you will not get a refund of your application fee.