Trademark-application denied due to company name which describes activity I am co-founder of a company with which we want to apply for a trademark of our name in BeNeLux. We were told that this would be quite dangerous for us and would be risky as our company name also describes the activity of our company. Such trademark applications would be denied by the European Union. I can give you an example. If a company is called &quot;computerrepair&quot; and their service is about repairing computers, a trademark request of the name &quot;computerrepair&quot; would be denied as the company name which describes the company's activity. My question is if this is true and how much value is placed on this? (I've searched a bit through the internet but haven't found an exact answer).
Yes, that's true Common words are not trademarkable, as is a descriptive phrase, because a trademark needs to be distinctive. As the Netherland Trademark Office tells you, your mark can't fit in any of these categories: literal - Your tradename or logo must not literal describe or depict your goods or services. promotion - The trademark must amount to more than a value judgment alone. misleading They even have an FAQ about that! The trademark is descriptive - which is the most common reason. A trademark is descriptive when it describes the properties of the product or service or promotes these. For example: the words 'super fast bike' for the product category 'bicycles'. Please note: the wording here is not always in common usage. The trademark 'medi' is not listed in the dictionary as a common abbreviation for 'medical'. All the same, it is a common designation that consumers will understand right away in the discriptive sense. So, this type of trademark could also be descriptive and hence declined. Computerrepair is a literal description of what the business does, just like Biomild on a mild biological yogurt just describes it.
Anyone seriously planning on doing this or anything like it would be well advised to consult a good trademark lawyer with the specifics. Specifics will matter in such a case. That said: Under US trademark law, the key question is whether a reasonable person would be confused into assuming that there is some connection, and that the new firm could be relied on based on the reputation of the old one. if so, this is a trademark infringement unless permission is obtained from the trademark holder (not likely to be granted). Since "orbitz" is a coined term its protection is stronger, there is no natural object or concept this can refer to. "AppleMoving" is less likely to be confused with "Apple Computers" because apples are real things and need not refer to computers. The likelihood of confusion depends on the specific facts of an individual case. Note also that trademark protection is a matter of private civil lawsuits. If orbitz didn't choose to sue for whatever reason, nothing would have stopped OrbitzMoving.
The standard for fair use of trademarks is as follows: (1) the product or service in question is not readily identifiable without use of the trademark (2) only so much of the mark as is reasonably necessary to identify the product or service is used (3) use of the mark does not suggest sponsorship or endorsement by the trademark owner. I think you might run into a problem with (1). In other words the trademark owner would argue that you could have used fake trademarks to satisfy your product description needs, so you are using their trademark unnecessarily.
To do so I used some images and Gifs which may be under copyright but since I don't earn money for myself and there is no company backing me I was hoping that there is some protection for private persons like me who just want to showcase the project. Sorry. If your website is public facing (i.e. not password protected and available only to family and close friends), you need to follow copyright law. There is no exception to copyright just because a project is run by an individual for non-commercial purposes. I am also insecure about the GDPR regulations since I give users the ability to create an account and try it out. Your profile says you're in the EU. Then you need to comply with the GDPR. Is there any way to protect me against greedy lawyers and companies? Could I write something like: "This website is a peace of art" and save myself with arguments like "artistic freedom" or "free speech"? Nope. A controversial website run by Peter Sunde had at one point a "free speech" disclaimer (similar to the one you propose) posted. However, Sunde did never use this defense in court: Finnish court slaps Peter Sunde with €350k fine. If he had shown up in court, I am pretty sure the court would have told him that such a disclaimer has no legal merit. The only protection that will make you completely safe is to adhere to the law.
Yes, in a sense. One patent is US 7444589 Automated patent office documentation by AT&amp;T. Another is US 6434580B1 System, method, and recording medium for drafting and preparing patent specifications from NEC. In most locations patents on a business method are not allowed but, although controversial, they are allowed in the U.S. Of course the fundamental requirement for patentablity is to be new. Since patenting itself is very old any patent on the topic would need to cover some narrow aspect, like the AT&amp;T and NEC patents. I do not understand the assumption that such a patent would necessarily be licensed freely.
Copyright Your code, and the display it produces, is automatically protected by copyright the moment it is &quot;fixed in a tangible form&quot;, which includes saving it in a computer file. In the US, a copyright notice has been optional since the effective date of the 1976 Copyright act, and in most other countries even longer. This is mandated by the Berne Copyright convention, and almost every country follows Berne, either directly or via the WTO's TRIPS Agreement. If an original work was posted to a web site, and then copied and re-posted without permission, the owner could send a takedown notice to the site where it is unlawfully posted, or that site's host. Or the author could sue for copyright infringement, and possibly collect money damages or get a court order forbidding further use of the content, or both. To sue in the US, the owner must first register the work with the copyright office, which requires payment of a fee. Trademark Unless you sell your program, or offer it for sale or rent, or sell or offer for sale something connected with it, such as a service, there will be no trademark. A trademark is a word, phrase, image, or design that identifies a particular product or service in the commercial marketplace. It serves to distinguish the trademarked product or service from other possibly similar things offered by other sellers. Product names, business names, slogans, logos, distinctive packaging, or design can all serve as trademarks. Once a person or business has acquired a valid trademark, others cannot, lawfully, use that mark or a closely similar one in ways that might confuse potential customers or members of the public about which goods come from which source, without permission. One also cannot lawfully use someone else's mark or a confusingly similar mark to suggest endorsement, approval, sponsorship or affiliation, unless one has permission from the trademark owner. To do either of these is to commit trademark infringement. If a trademark is infringed the owner may sue and possibly collect money damages, or get a court order against further infringement, or both. In some countries, only registered trademarks are protected against infringement. In others, such as the US, a degree of protection can be achieved just by using a mark &quot;in trade&quot;, that is, commercially. Valid copyrights are valid all over the world, automatically. Trademarks, however, must be protected country-by-country: what is protected in one country may well not be in another. Trademark registration is generally separate for each separate country where the trademark is used. Unlike copyrights or patents, trademarks do not automatically expire after a fixed period. But if an owner stops using a trademark &quot;in trade&quot; it may be canceled for lack of use in a relatively short period, as short as 5 years in some countries.
If you form an LLC, and then someone later obtains a registered trademark in the same name, the registered trademark would be enforceable everywhere except in the markets and places where the LLC developed common law trademark rights prior to their registration. Your LLC formation would also put a bump in the road in their trademark application. You can, of course, do both, although it is unclear to me why you feel such urgency in the likelihood of an infringement, which suggests that there may be relevant facts that aren't revealed by your post.
In the United States you can search trademarks at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) website. http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks-application-process/search-trademark-database