Legal Question in Business Law in United Kingdom

Re: copyright/trademark question

In UK law this seems a simple but is an involved question.

Firstly you need to do a trademark search. Firms like ours can do it for you and the cost should be less than �50. If you infringe a registered trademark then as well as a civil wrong this can be a criminal offence. Every business, whether web-based or not, needs to get into the habit of doing searches first - there is more information on this in the updates section of our website at www.keeblehawson.co.uk

The next thing is infringement by use of a domain name. The key case is One in a Million a Court of Appeal case last year. This is again summarised on our site and in a linked in article I wrote for The Lawyer. Essentially you probably cannot use the name if someone else is already using it whether it is registered as a trademark or not if they have goodwill in it. The Court of Appeal in One in a Million seem to be saying that non-registered tradenames can also be protected against Internet use and also that you can be caught by merely possessing a domain name for example which is someone else's trading name.

Copyright is of limited use in the UK to protect names like yours. A better bet would be to regsiter the name or maybe your name and logo as a trademark. You do this at the Patent Office and again firms like ours offer that service - again more details in the updates library on our website.

Hope this helps - all of the advice is subject to the disclaimer on our site.

Jonathan Armstrong

Keeble Hawson Moorhouse

Old Cathedral Vicarage, St James Row

Re: copyright/trademark question

Because of the world wide nature of the World Wide Web, it is possible that your company's name could bump into the name of another existing company. If you are the senior user, good for you. If you are the junior user, yes, you could face potential liability for trademark infringement. Also, if you know you are infringing, that's not so good either. You might first do your own check through the various Web search engines. If you want to be much more sure, you could hire a search to be done by Thomson and Thomson or some other trademark search firm to see what is out there. This would be adviseable anyway if you wished to trademark the mark in the United States (or in the UK as well; Contact legal counsel in Great Britain concerning your British trademark concerns.). If you have already obtained a trademark registration in the UK, that could help you in establishing priority for your US registration. If you have additional questions, please email me directly at [email protected]. Good luck!

Todd Epp

Lynn, Jackson, Shultz & Lebrun, P.C.

PO Box 1920