Hypothetical: if a small coffee shop exists in one country with a particular name, and I want to open one in another country, unrelated, that has the same name, is that ok legally? I mean there must be loads of establishments with the same name like hairdressers and stuff...
@ignitionigel ah thanks. It an interesting thing, there's probably several hairdressers in any one country with the same name, they all tend to use the pun-based names like 'a cut above'.
@WelshPixie oh yeah, same here haha
@WelshPixie As far as I know, names need to be protected by a trademark, and trademarks are not automatically worldwide (and a small coffeeshop isn't that likely to have registered a trademark, I guess)
Maybe do a websearch for the trademark office in your country and see if they have a place where you can search to check if the name is trademarked?
@Anke just used an online trademark search and it found zero results. :)
@WelshPixie I Am Not A Lawyer, but that sounds promising. :P
@WelshPixie
Yes it is, unless it’s a registered trademark in your country. Most local shop don’t bother protecting their names internationally.
On the other hand it might worth an email to the owner of the other shop. It may even become mutually revarding for both of them. Like shop A can say “if you visit Pondward, make sure you check out shop B. Here’s a coupon to use there!”
But yeah, a business that has no presence in a country generally can't say anything about their trademark. And, as you noted, there's no Mamma Mia pizza chain, so every town has a local Mamma Mia (and another dozen pizzeria trope names) and it's totally fine.
@WelshPixie I believe that yes it is OK. Also, if your version then becomes a big multinational burger chain, then you can sue the other one out of existence... All still legal apparently too. But you have to put Mc at the beginning....
@shivvi Hah XD
@WelshPixie Yes. Names are usually only unique within their country (or sometimes state/province).
@WelshPixie Broadly true, yes. In addition to what others have brought up about trademarks being registered within country, if you're not competing in the same region of even the same country they may be seen as a conflict. Generally, the entity that had it regionally first gets to keep it.
Unless, of course, it's McDonald's.
@WelshPixie er, may *not* be seen
@naga gotcha 😁 thank you!
@WelshPixie @naga Some things can't be trademarked at all, rules for that vary from country to country. For instance, there's a gym in my area named "Lift!"
They can trademark their specific degisn (yellow with red and the font they use) so people can't use the same LOGO. But they can't trademark the word "lift".
@jessmahler @WelshPixie Yeah. One-word trademarks are rare (#cockygate notwithstanding)--the core issue in US law, at least, is whether the two businesses can be confused with each other. So a gym named "Lift!" and a plastic surgeon named "Lift!" couldn't be confused, especially with different fonts and colors.
Sooo, I messaged the other company as a courtesy and they were very lovely and helpful and totally cool with us using the same name! Whodathunk.
Anyway, can resume planning now. More details at a later date :)
@WelshPixie *heeeeh* yes, that's the best thing XD
@WelshPixie yup, depends what countries they have registered trademarks I believe.