New Business Name - How do I know its Safe to Use?

[MarkPearson]

I have a business name for a new venture I am working on.

All the domain names are unpurchased and there are no UK businesses named the same.

However it seems that there is a US company with the same name.

Could someone in the know please let me know am I safe to use this name?

In the UK?

In Europe?

Australia?

What about the US?

I will PM the name to someone knowledgable in this field.

Many thanks in advance.

Mark

[PlainText]

It's usually only a problem if this other US company is in an identical trade. Then you can be done for "passing off" - because Firm X's customers or potential customers think you are Firm X when in fact you are Firm Y. Crossguard can probably explain it better.

My partner is a paternt attorney and did all my trademark searches for free for me before I started trading so I wouldn't run into this kind of problem.

[SillyJokes]

You can check to see if they have registered the trademark in the UK easily enough. I just can't remember how.

[Rob Holmes]

You can check to see if they have registered the trademark in the UK easily enough. I just can't remember how.

Here: http://webdb4.patent.gov.uk/tm/text

Rob

[MarkPearson]

thanks.

Is that search UK or international?

[Rob Holmes]

I believe it's UK and EU - I really recommend you speak to Philip at Crossguard - to be honest he does my trademark stuff - it all looks pretty simple but he came up with a couple of things that have actually probably saved us more than his fee ;)

Rob

[VeryMark]

We can check out whatever it is internationally for you Mark - so far, we do work for clients in 77 countries.

Email me at mail@crossguard.info - by the way, you need to check for anything confusingly similar, not merely identical, to assess the infringement risk properly (Viagara were able to stop the name Viagrene being used for an energy drink.)

More info can be found at http://www.crossguard.info/topics/trade-mark-and-marketing-clearance.html.