Business name/trademarks

[Miss R]

Hi,

If I choose a name or a domain name e.g flowertopsdirect.co.uk and there is already a business with website that trades as flowertops.co.uk. Will this be against the regulation and infringement of trademark if its trademarked. Just as an example.

Thanks again

 

[kyber]

It depends. If possible, it is best to avoid problems as best you can (you can even pay companies to do searches for you before establishing a new company to avoid potential problems).

If you offer is very similar to that of a company of a similar name and they are better established, longer established, higher profile etc. they could potentially accuse you of passing-off. You don't want to go there.

The example you have would be a little too close for comfort for me.

Stuart

 

[MikeH]

If the domain name is registered as a trademark then they may have grounds to object. If the company name and logo are registered trademarks then it is unlikely that you would have a problem using the domain. However, as Kyber pointed out you must avoid 'passing off' or they will have grounds to take action.

Mike.

 

[Miss R]

Hi Stuart,

Thank you for your post. I understand what you're saying, how about I see quite a lot when I checked domain names that one domain is own by a company and another one of the same name is own by other. Lets say someone owns and operated another site with ukbusinessforum.co.uk, will that be against the regulation?

Thank you.

 

[kyber]

I do not believe that it is a regulatory matter particularly. Rather it is a civil issue generally falling to any company that feels it may be being abused/exploited to object.

You generally can not register a trademark that is very similar to someone else's especially if you are in the same business and likely to be confused. You most certainly should take care not to abuse/exploit any trademark you do not own. There are many many websites explaining how trademarks work. Here is one.

You will have seen many companies in the old days with names that feature locations along the lines of:

A N Other & Co (Hereabouts) Ltd

The internet has somewhat opened up a can of worms and it is very easy to register a domain (and many variations are possible) and the registration authorities need convincing of who has the right to use the domain in the case of dispute.

There is nothing stopping me registering the name TescoFood.co.uk but if I started selling food through this and particularly if the site did not make it clear that it was nothing to do with Tesco and did not obviously have a very different brand image Tesco would certainly object (when and if it noticed and there are companies around who monitor these things for the big boys) and possible would sue me. A civil matter.

The Police would only become involved if there was some criminal activity around what I was doing, primarily some kind of fraud (obtaining money by deception).

Domains names based on ordinary English words are problematic. How about windows.co.uk?

There were a lot of problems a few years ago with companies with the same name but from different countries arguing over who had rights to the .com version of a domain of that name. For a while, the default answer enforced by the registration organisation was the USA company had primacy (by the way, not a lot people realise that there is a country domain for the USA it is just not used much).

If you name a company and/or use a domain, in a way that it can be viewed (on the balance of probabilities) to be trying to exploit the "good will" of another established company then you will almost certainly face problems sooner or later.

If the name uses common words though and is not obviously moving into well occupied territory (in terms of identity) you should be fine.

Stuart