Trademark advice

[eddietibbitts]

I am on the gov website searching to see if someone has already registered the name I wish to call my latest product idea.

Upon searching this one word name and filtering to the relevant class, I am shocked to see 3 pages of accepted trademarks for this word all with the same classification.

I didn't think this was possible?

Is it because the products are all different. So if the word was 'Crunch' for a new cereal product, but someone had already registered for a biscuit company, and another for a crisp company, etc, but none existed for cereal, could this be accepted?

What about if there was a cereal called crunch, but I wanted to call it crunch granola for example, could that be accepted?

Another thing is, how can I find out if someone has actually registered a cereal company called crunch without seeing a logo appear in the results?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

It isn't necessarily if something has not been specifically registered before, but if some one with a similar registration protests your registration. It then becomes a battle of bank balances and time about who can prove or disprove possible confusion.

 

[eddietibbitts]

It isn't necessarily if something has not been specifically registered before, but if some one with a similar registration protests your registration. It then becomes a battle of bank balances and time about who can prove or disprove possible confusion.

Thanks a lot for sending this over. So would it be fair to say if Crunch Granola had a totally different look as a brand to Crunch, that would be okay? And is there any way for Crunch Granola to even find out if Crunch had trademarked without seeing their logo appear in the list of trademarked companies? For most it just says the name of the company and their classification. Sometimes there's a logo which gives it away.

 

[Frank the Insurance guy]

My advice is to try and avoid anything that may potentially cause a conflict. Other companies may not raise any issues, but if they do it would be very costly for you to deal with.

Better to go for something "new" with no possible connection to something already out there - that way you can be more confident that you won't be dragged into a costly legal battle. Also, any time, effort and expense you have incurred in the product would all be wasted!

 

[ethical PR]

Thanks a lot for sending this over. So would it be fair to say if Crunch Granola had a totally different look as a brand to Crunch, that would be okay? And is there any way for Crunch Granola to even find out if Crunch had trademarked without seeing their logo appear in the list of trademarked companies? For most it just says the name of the company and their classification. Sometimes there's a logo which gives it away.

If its not clear on the IPO website, why not ask a trademark lawyer