Hi Christina, what a lovely message to wake up to on a Monday morning....goodness. I feel for you! I definitely agree with Sundi that SCORE is a great place to go for a quick and free answer. I just posed my first question via their 'ASK SCORE' section and rec'd help within 24 hours.
With that said, here are some snippets from a few other threads that apply to your question (if you want to read the whole thread just search for 'trademark' in the search option in the menu across the top)
Here's an article that might help clarify any remaining questions that you might have about this.
Here's an exceprt from the article that directly addresses this very issue:
"Researching a name’s availability
So you see you can’t absolutely guarantee that nobody has the name you want, but you can at least try. The fastest and simplest way to start researching a name is to do an Internet search. Search about half a dozen of your favorite searchers and see whether or not the name you’re considering is already taken. You don’t want to name a business with a name that can cause problems later, because it confuses you with other businesses. That’s obvious, but how do you research a name to make sure there won’t be a conflict? There is no single sure way, but here are some suggestions: - Search the Web. Start with your favorite searches and see whether anything turns up on the company name you’re considering. You can also go to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office website, or KnowX.com or similar searcher sites.
- Search the Internet domain names. There are several searchers that offer access to the “whois” database of Internet sites. The most traditional site for this is the one at VeriSign, Inc. (formerly Network Solutions).
- See an attorney. Since you probably want to talk to an attorney about the correct business entities and other start-up matters, you may also ask your attorney about checking on business names. Generally you want to do your own check first to catch any obvious conflicts.
Ultimately, you really protect your business name only by using it. Corporations are registered by states, and factitious business names are registered in counties. Registering a name doesn’t really protect it though, because the same name could legally exist in many other states, many other counties.
You could be Acme Corporation in Illinois and legally own that corporation in that state, but there could be another Acme Corporation in every other state, and every one of them is legal until you win a lawsuit proving that they are trading on the commercial interests you own. When you really get protection is when you use that name, and therefore when you find somebody else using it you can prove that you had it first, so they are trading on your name. There are lots of McDonald’s restaurants around, and McDonald’s can’t stop them from using that name if they had it early enough, and especially if they aren’t pretending to be a fast food hamburger joint. The attempt to confuse is very important."
-----------------------
This
quote from Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing summarizes the purpose of trademarks nicely (Cory is one of the major forces behind the development of Creative Commons licensing and is well known in the inudstry):
"Trademarks are intended to protect consumers by ensuring that goods and services aren't misleadingly labeled. A trademark holder, say, "Coke," gets the right to sue companies that use the word "Coke" in their products and services in a way that would lead the public to believe that Coke was behind them.
But trademarks aren't "property" -- they aren't words owned by companies. They're the ability to use the courts to protect a company's customers. That's a pretty good idea: the public deserves to be protected from misleading marketing."
For more info, check out the following links:
Trademark Issues Blog (can similar blogs names coexist?)
Performancing (TM issues with blog names)
Chilling Effects (What exactly does a TM owner have rights to?)
----------------------------
Hope that helps and best of luck with this - please do keep us posted on what happens...
Trademark Help
Sorry, I couldn't resist.) contacted his lawyer he'd be laughed at!
Linear Mode
