Comments on: What trademark and other legal issues are involved in selecting a company name?

By: Name

Name — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 04:22:18 +0000

Suppose a person takes an English word, changes one of its letters and registers it as the name of a company and gets a trademark for it. Would this be a trademark violation if the original English word has been used by another company?
E.g., consider Apple Corporation. If another company, in a different business, uses Epple as its name and trademark, would this be a violation of Apple's trademark?

By: gnljones

gnljones — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 04:22:11 +0000

I am launching a new company and applied for Trademarks on a logo, company name and product name. What do I need to put on the packaging of the product to protect these trademarks?

By: Yokum

Yokum — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:10:18 +0000

@Tony – you need to discuss this with a trademark specialist.

By: Yokum

Yokum — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 05:10:18 +0000

@Tony – you need to discuss this with a trademark specialist.

By: Tony

Tony — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:39:12 +0000

If one person has a trademarked name of a product, can another person use that name for their usernamej/email address legally? I have a trademarked product and when I went to use that name as my emial address, I found that someone else has used my product name as their email address. Is is within my legal right to ask them to not use that name?

By: Yokum

Yokum — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 04:42:37 +0000

@Jegman,

Yes, but you need to actually use the trademark in order to attempt to protect it.

If there are consultants that are doing work on the website, it is cleaner to have these people assign IP to an entity as opposed to you personally. If you start promising equity to consultants in a yet to be incorporated entity, it may get very messy to document/clean up later.

By: Jegman

Jegman — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 19:39:39 +0000

Two questions…

In regard to trademarks, is it possible to trademark a logo without the prospective company being incorporated yet? If so, would you advise against this?

I’m currently building a website with hopes to later build a business around it. Can I continue during the next few months of development and generating interest without the legal setup. I’m not at the point where common shares, tax, etc. are points to consider just yet? I’d like to go as long as possible without the legal setup, but perhaps this is quite stupid of me?

Thanks

By: Yokum

Yokum — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 06:17:35 +0000

@Eric – Since I assume that this is a real fact pattern, you should engage an attorney.

By: Eric Robinson

Eric Robinson — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 08:03:32 +0000

Let’s say a company A uses a name of a corporation that has gone out of business…still says they are that same business, but the corporation has closed its doors permantly. Company A takes over the name (AMGI) and does not file a fictitious business name until quite some time later and when they do, they say they are now AMG. The website still says it is AMGI, but the customers do not know. They think they are the same corporation. They are not but are run by a company called Safehouse. How can a company tell customers they are something they are not? Use a website under a shutdown corporation’s name? And take on contracts under an old name while the customers think they are still being serviced by the old one.