Using a trademarked word as part of another word I have read many questions asking the opposite: splitting a trademark into multiple words. Not sure if the scenario is the same. Example: company named &quot;FilterJedi&quot; selling water filters, is this a trademark infringement because jedi is protected and is a famous term? even when the company is not using any logo or reference to StarWars and is not in the business of entertainment?
There are 95 Jedi trademarks on file. Tons of them are dead. The word &quot;Jedi&quot; itself is trademarked by Lucasarts (a subsidiary of Disney) under Registration Number 3794988, listed for print products and clothes, 2858244 for digital mediums, 2595365 for toys, 2823661 for entertainment services. Now, most jedi marks are Lucasarts, but not all. Serial 88625298 was &quot;Jedi Ooolong&quot;, filed by Kombucha tea, which did get processed, filed and a denial/request for an amendment was sent back, and 6 months later the mark was canceled for non-answering. The request contained this line: Registration of the applied-for mark is refused because of a likelihood of confusion with the mark in U.S. Registration No. 5581531. Trademark Act Section 2(d), 15 U.S.C. §1052(d); see TMEP §§1207.01 et seq. Registration number 5581531 is/was &quot;The Last Jedi&quot; for juices, the rest of the document goes over why it is denied. Serial 88672347 is &quot;Gediforce&quot; for &quot;Downloadable computer programs for data processing; downloadable computer programs designed to estimate costs and health impact of various gestational diabetes mellitus medical screening choices&quot; - and this mark exists since about 2012 in Denmark and 2019 in the US, and granted this April. No conflicting marks. Serial 90150034 is &quot;Chris Jedi&quot; owned by a music label for music, clothes, and entertainment services - recently filed but not yet granted or even given to an examiner.
The name of a company is not necessarily a trademark, so you are conflating two different concepts: A company name is the legal identity of the company, like your name is for you. A brand is an advertising construct which identifies certain goods or services. For example, Microsoft is both a company name and a trademark while Windows is only a trademark. Company names are regulated by whomever it is in your jurisdiction who is responsible for this: in Australia this is the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). In general, within the same jurisdiction, you cannot have two company names that are the same. So, if you are not registering your company in the UK you should be fine. Trademark is about protecting brands and ensuring that there is no scope for confusion by the consumer that your goods and services are theirs (and vice-versa). Generally, if there is no room for confusion there is no trademark infringement. E.g., if your brand is about software and theirs is about agriculture then this is probably OK. If you both make software but you are a game company and they make accounting software this might be OK too, or it might not.
The game Five Nights at Freddy's and the other elements in the large media franchise of the same name are surely protected by copyright. In addition the name of the fictional restaurant in the game may well be protected as a trademark, and I would be astounded if &quot;Five Nights at Freddy's&quot; was not protected as a trademark. Other names and phrases may well be trademarked also. If the suggested actual restaurant was at all closely based on the images and descriptions from the games or the novels, it would be a derivative work. Unless one had permission from the copyright owner, creating such a restaurant would be an act of wilful copyright infringement. The owner could sue, and quite likely win. In the US the owner could get up to $150,000 in statutory damages for each work that was infringed, which in this case might well mean several of the games and novels, depending on just what images and descriptions were imitated or used. Or the owner could elect to receive damages and profits, meaning all damage provably done to the owner, plus all profits made by the infringer. In addition to either, the owner might well obtain an injunction against further operations of the restaurant. Beyond that, if the imitation used any of the trademarked names, slogans, or other protected trademarks, there could be a suit for trademark infringement. There could be no question that the marks were being used in commerce, and were not instances of nominative use. A restaurant is a very different thing from a video game, a novel, or a film, of course. No doubt it falls into a different trademark category. Normally trademark protection extends only to the category for which the mark is protected. But in the case of a &quot;well-known&quot; or &quot;famous&quot; mark, protection under US law is wider. Also, when the infringement might lead reasonable people to falsely belie that the infringing product or service has been endorsed, approved, or sponsored by the trademark owner, it may be a violation even in a significantly different category. This a successful suit for trademark infringement might well be possible also. Of course, if the new restaurant only vaguely resembled the one in the games and novels, and did not use the phrase &quot;Five Nights at Freddy's&quot; or the name &quot;Freddy Fazbear’s&quot; or any other distinctive names from the media franchise, That might not be copyright or trademark infringement. But that would not seem to achieve the effect suggested by the question. If the creator of the restaurant obtained permission from the copyright and trademark owner(s) then there would be no legal issue. But the owners might well not grant such permission, or might charge a high fee for it. I doubt that the idea is workable. As a side note, many years ago I regularly patronized a restaurant named &quot;Bilbo's Pizza&quot; It was decorated with murals obviously based on descriptions for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The intended reference was clear. They may have gotten permission from the Tolkien estate; I understand that Tolkien was rather free about granting such permissions. Or they may have just counted on word not coming to the copyright holder. But modern media franchise companies are probably much more watchful and much more quick to enforce IP rights.
Let me be sure that I understand the situation. You set up an account with Big Company, which uses BigCo as a trademark. You want email about that account to reach you with a unique address, so you set up 'BigCo@RichDomain.Com" and gave that as your email when setting up tha account. You don't plan to use that address for any purpose but communications from BigCo to you and from you to them. (Of course these aren't the actual names.) Have I understood the situation correctly? It seems that you ar not using 'BigCo" in trade, nor are you likely to be confused with an official representative of BigCo, so you are not infringing their trademark. However, someone using such an email more generally could perhaps be so confuse, so BigCo has a somewhat legitimate concern, as they cannot know the very limited use you plan to make of this address. The only way that the could force you not to use such an email address would be via a court order as part of a suit for trademark infringement, whcih under the circumstances I doubt they would get. However, unless they have some sort of contract with you to the contrary, they can control who registers on their site. and could refuse to register you using an email address that includes their name or alias. Convincing them to accept your registration, even though it does no harm to them, will almost surely be more trouble than it is worth. Give them "BigFirm@RichDomain.Com" or something else that is not their name, but will suggest their name enough that you will know who it is. This will serve your purpose fully, and avoid a long argument with people who are reading from a script (once you get past the automated process, if you can even do that). This is all assuming that I have understood the situation correctly. I am also largely assuming US law, since you didn't mention a jurisdiction. (EDIT: UK law should not be very different on these points.)
Those posts are talking about making a modified copy of a copyrighted work. The key word is copy. You are not making a copy. Copyright is not about how a physical embodiment of a copyrighted work is treated. You can burn a book and shred a newspaper. Neither of those actions is making a copy. Also, cutting up a newspaper and pasting a picture on your wall has nothing to do with any “derivative works” issue.
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.
From those articles, it seems that at least some versions of the "Supreme" Logo have been successfully registered. Therefore, any "confusingly similar" logo would be infringement, and could subject anyone using such logos in trade to an infringement suit. And it seems that the owners of the Supreme line are quite willing to sue. It does not, therefore, follow that every possible logo consisting of a red box with white lettering in the Futura font would be an infringement. Similarity depends on the overall effect of a mark, and the main test is the likelihood of confusion or deception of reasonable customers or potential customers. If the text is, say, multiple words, none of which is the word "supreme" or any similar word, then it might arguably be not the Supreme logo, but a different logo that has some similar elements. (If you describe it as "the Supreme logo but" you make your opponent's case for them.) Whether a specific choice of words would be confusingly similar is more specific than this forum can get. You should consult a trademark lawyer for advice on that point. But if in doubt you might want to go with a greater difference. How about a blue box instead of a red one?
You cannot use the libraries trademarks, but that does not stop you from using your own. For example, you cannot use the name Twitter Bootstrap to endorse, promote or use as the name of your project.