Trademark registration is completely optional in the USA, UK and some other countries. When you are the first to USE a distinctive brand on particular goods or services in commerce, you automatically become the owner of enforceable rights in that trademark for those and similar goods and services in your field.

You may optionally register in one or more states or in the USPTO.

However, your question also carries the issue of whether you can "name" something new with a trademark, which is a brand. The answer is: Not for very long. As soon as your brand becomes the "generic" name for your product or services, it is no longer a trademark, having suffered "genericide".

For instance, escalator, kerosene, thermos were once valuable trademarks, when used as adjectives.

Once they became nouns, they began to lose all trademark value. Similarly if you use it as a verb, as in "go xerox this for me". Xerox is a brand, not a noun or a verb.

Therefore, you would need a plan with a description of your new subcategory and a completely separate 'brand" for your particular goods or services withing that new subcategory, if you want a trademark.

Yes, you can trademark a word so long as it's distinctive and not already in regular usage. For example, you couldn't trademark the word "sandwich" because everyone already uses that word to mean something. Maybe you want to trademark the made up word "mudwich", which is far enough away from sandwich (you probably couldn't get a trademark for "sandwish" or "sangwich" for example - too close). If the word is already in use like the made up word "dubstep" then you can't trademark that either. But if you do come up with something unique then yes - you can.

Here's a link to the U.S. Trademark and Patent Office, giving some very basic info.

http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/index.js...

You can do some searches on legal sites or business sites, for more detailed info.

Good luck.

I really doubt that you can just trademark a word. you probably have to make it the name of your company or something

I'd focus on the music and let a manager focus on this legal Mumbai jumbo

I'm an EDM music producer, but I have come up with a new subcategory of EDM that is what's going to make me and my music different. It's never been done before and I'm sure it will be a big hit one I perfect being able to produce it. I have come up with the name that I want to call this sub genre and I was wondering if it is possible for me to trademark that name? For ex. Lets say I came up with the name 'dubstep' and I wanted to trademark that name. It's not so that no one else can produce it. It's just so that no one else can call it this name. I have looked into how to trademark things and to file an application you have to file a whole bunch of things like what it looks like, what products it would be on, ect. But what I want to trademark doesn't really have any of those things. So I was wondering I it's even possible to trademark this word?