The name you propose would not be the same as the existing registered company and therefore should be available to register.
Depending on the circumstances, however, if the existing company were to lodge an objection with the Registrar of Companies within 12 months of your registration, the Registrar could direct that your company must change its name on the grounds that it was 'too like' the existing company.
On the other hand, since the 2006 Companies Act any person (registered company or not) has a right to object to the name of an existing company if it was an ‘opportunistic registration’. The objection to a company's registered name may be made on the ground that:
* it is the same as a name associated with the objector in which he has goodwill, or
* it is sufficiently similar to such a name that its use in the United Kingdom would be likely to mislead by suggesting a connection between the company and the objector.
The objection must be made by application to the Company Names Tribunal which is operated by the Intellectual Property Office. You should consult the Company Names Tribunal information
www.gov.uk/government/organisations/company-names-tribunal for further details of the scope of this right and the procedure to be followed.
If you as the objector can establish one of the two grounds for objection, the company whose name is being objected to may contest the objection on any of several grounds:
(a) that the name was registered before the commencement of the activities on which the applicant relies to show goodwill;
(b) that the company is operating under the name, or is proposing to do so and has incurred substantial start-up costs in preparation, or was formerly operating under the name and is now dormant;
(c) that the name was registered in the ordinary course of a company formation business and the company is available for sale to the applicant on the standard terms of that business;
(d) that the name was adopted in good faith; or
(e) that the interests of the applicant are not adversely affected to any significant extent.
The objection must be upheld if none of the above facts are established. However, in the case of the facts mentioned in (a), (b) or (c), even if they are established, the objection must still be upheld if the objector shows that the main purpose of the company in registering the name was to obtain money (or other consideration) from the objector or prevent him from registering the name.
Decisions of the Company Names Tribunal are published on the Tribunal's website.
Alternatively or in addition to using the above procedure, it may be worth paying a modest sum to get the name.
