Legal Question in Business Law in California

Do you want to call your collection "John Smith of San Francisco" or just "San Francisco"? Some cities have tried to trademark their names with varying degrees of success. But my advice to aspiring clothing designers is to base the brand name on their own name; you'll notice that lots of other designers do the same. The reason is you get twofold protection, the first from trademarking your name as the brand name, and secondly your name is also protected by the Right of Publicity. You could then add on "San Francisco."

I agree with Mr. Stone, and would add that unless the resulting product was in bad taste or otherwise offensive to the City, the chances it would sue are pretty remote.

I'm a former Deputy City Attorney for the City and County of San Francisco. The City recognizes that it cannot lay a blanket claim on the words San Francisco, which are pretty clearly in the public domaine. On the other hand, the City does have various symbols and logos for the various City departments, agencies and programs, containing the words San Francisco, and the City and the City Attorney vigorously protects those combinations of San Francisco with images and graphics, and particular proprietary renderings of the name itself. So the bottom line is do not step over the line and use the words San Francisco in a way that is similar to the City signs, logos, etc. that you see around town, or you will hear from Dennis Herrera's minions. Just using the words, however, shouldn't be a problem.