Trading Names / Business Names

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Noodle-Pulp

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Hi,
Does anyone have any first hand knowledge about trading name disputes please?
My wife is about to start a new venture - she has the domain name she wanted to setup the business as, she's also opened a trading account with the bank.
Today.. lo and behold she's discovered there's someone already trading with a similar name and they've actually got her domain name as a Facebook page.

Any advice on this would be wonderful please?
TIA
 
If the trading name is not copyrighted then others can use it.
But the domain name exactly should be yours i.e. .com but if they use .co.uk then it is different so unless you have all of them they can use it.
This is my understanding of it because a company trading name that I worked for was also used by others but in a completely different business.
I know that a Limited company name can only be used by one company at a time.
Hope it helps.
 
Much of this depends on who got there first.
After that you're into trademark registration and issues with 'passing off' where one company uses the reputation of another to gain. You should also consider if the businesses are similar in the work that they do or whether it is possible for businesses to co-exist with similar names (and many do) without any problems. You may need to seek legal advice.

I am not a lawyer and batteries are not included!
 
Another thing I forgot to say is that this other business is in the USA, obviously we're in UK.
The other business is a clothes designer, my wife will be selling clothes.
 
Only guessing, does the US company trade in the UK ?
Are they listed at Companies House ?
Companies House

Could you add CLOTHES to the end of your wife's name to distinguish from the US company ?
 
If there could be confusion between your Wife's new company and another existing with similar products or services and a customer could possibly be confused into thinking your Wife's company was the other one, then you would be well advised to steer clear of that name as it stands.
They are very likely to invoke a copywrite or false trading suit.
 
Our company name happens to be in use by a US company in the same market sector as us (I only learnt that after our company was already set-up), though different activities.

They don't operate in the UK and never gave us any grief.

The only downside is that they have the .com name, while we only have the .co.uk - and I would have loved to get both.

In hindsight, I should have checked that the .com name was available before registering the company - however it was in the late nineties and Internet/email awareness was not that high in those days.

I would say that in the real world you will probably not have a problem. Trade Mark litigation across countries can be expensive and not everyone will readily engage in it (unless they are a large multinational company with in-house legal department or lawyers on retainer), and even so my understanding is that they still have to prove that you are actually benefiting financially from doing so, misleading customers, profiting from their reputation, etc - just having the same name is not enough to establish damages.
 
We've threatened legal action against someone using our name. They were in the same line of business and city. They backed down and complied with all our requests. We have the limited company and most of the domains (we got one more as a result of our threat).

If the US company trades in the UK then I'd advise that you may want to think about a different name if they are of any substance as the time may come when the lawyers are unleashed - you neither need nor want it and the costs involved in changing your trading name at a later date will likely be a lot more than they are now.
 
The other way of looking at this would be to say that virtually any name you think up will already be in use somewhere. The question is, just how excited do you (or they) want to get about it?

For 99.9% of traders & companies I imagine the activities of a company 4000 miles away are of no interest or impact at all

Unless they are a Fortune 500 company, or trade extensively on the web, I wouldn't worry

Unless your name is Nissan there is probably nothing to worry about

Nick Froome
 
I really wouldn't worry. Unless they are selling into the UK or the clothes are similar. One or two will be very picky, so if they send an aggressive letter from a US law firm, change the name then.
 
I can remember a case reported a few years back concerning McDonalds flexing their corporate muscles here in Scotland .

One concerned a Mrs. McDonald who happened to have a small cafe in Glasgow , I don't know exactly what style but I'm guessing ti was more of a 'tea & scones' type place rather than an American style fast food establishment . The court ruled that customers were hardly likely to confuse the two places , besides the lady had her own name above the door and was entitled to use it .

The lawyer for McDonalds tried to claim the 'Mc' was their property , but was told by the judge 'NOT IN SCOTLAND' :D
 
There was an interesting report recently involving a woman producing Innocent Vitamins, while claiming there was no conflict with the well-established Innocent Drinks brand. Personally, I think she's on a sticky wicket.

True to their image, the drinks company have taken a softly-softly approach so far, but with the Coca-Cola Company having a 58% stake in Innocent Drinks, I have a feeling it will end up in court if the polite request to stop using the "Innocent" name is not complied with.

I'm innocent over trademark clash, says children's vitamins maker | News
 
Many thanks for all your input so far, it's pretty heart breaking because my dear wife has had her mind set on this for a while now. She's been trading on ebay as an online shop selling stuff already, now in preparation for the website launch (which wasn't cheap) she's closed the ebay shop and in the process just did a check to make sure she's aware of her current competition.

Here's an example of what's going on (I've changed the names slightly).

The domain my wife has:
Little-Yellow-Polka-Dot-SwimwearDOTcom

The domain the other business has:
Little-Yellow-Polka-Dot-Wear-OnlineDOTcom
(but it looks like they're actually trading as "Little Yellow Polka Dot Swimwear")
 
Very odd they didn't register their own company domain name? :confused:
 
As others have said I wouldn't worry so much until it becomes an issue.
From what you have told us the other business was established first, but if they haven't registered the trade mark and have left the .co.uk option open then more fool them and if I were you I would now register the trademark in the UK and Europe.
 
What Stevieb said. My company's trade name registered in 1990 is used by a few companies in both US and UK, yes we could get funny, but problem is by adding an additional word, (Bristol) ltd or (London) Ltd or SW or NW changes the whole thing. The US company emailed us and asked if we wanted to join their web page, last count there were 15 or so companies throughout the world with the same or very simillar names. The object of a new venture is to make money, concentrate on that and your name will be at the forefront.
 
That domain name is awful anyway, I couldn't be bothered typing that url in! Too many hyphens.
 
That domain name is awful anyway, I couldn't be bothered typing that url in! Too many hyphens.

ahem... it was an example :p
 

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