business simularities? does it matter legally?

[homeriscool]

hi all, i am choosong my business name and domain, although it is simular to a competitors name it is not the same. for instance the competitions name is for example joinerliverpool.co.uk mine is joiner4liverpool.co.uk would this difference be legal ?

 

[Astaroth]

It will depend on if joe public is likely to confuse the two organisations. The closer the similarity in name/ identity the more chance of issues.

 

[MrMichael]

As Dan said if the two are confusingly similar, then the existing domain owner could potentially take action for passing off or for trade mark infringement if they'd registered the name as a TM - you might want to search the trade mark registry to check that.

Of course, if the two domain names are completely descriptive as in your example, then it's less of an issue as it's difficult to either obtain goodwill in a completely descriptive name and/or obtain trade mark registration for the name, unless you can show it has acquired distinctiveness through use.