Legal Question in Business Law in Georgia

Re: uncorporated names

That depends. There really is no short, hard-and-fast rule as to whether or not someone can use your company name. Once a company (or an individual, for that matter) starts using a name, they do have some common law protection in the name as a trademark. However, such protections are generally relatively weak in the absence of an actual incorporation or registration of the trademark, and the amount of protection depends greatly on the factual circumstances. There are also a host of additional factors to be considered to see whether or not the person using the company name will be entitled to keep using the name, and you really should speak with an attorney about all of the relevant factors to determine whether or not you can stop the other entity from using the name and what you need to do to protect the name.

The foregoing is general information only, not specific legal advice. No attorney/client relationship has been created or should be implied.