• Kairos
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    1425 days ago

    Names aren’t directly trademarkable.

    • @humorlessrepost@lemmy.world
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      1025 days ago

      “Directly” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

      Try opening a finance company called Marcus or glasses called Warby Parker.

        • Flying Squid
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          625 days ago

          If your kid wanted to start, for example, Disney Coin Laundry and had a sign that was clearly not affiliated with the Walt Disney company, they would have a chance to trademark it. Disney’s lawyers would definitely try to fight it, but you would technically have the right to do so.

          A trademark has to be protected and also can’t be associated with a competitive business.

          • @son_named_bort@lemmy.world
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            624 days ago

            Reminds me of Hershey’s Ice Cream, which is a separate and unrelated company to Hershey’s Chocolate. The chocolate company tried several times to sue the ice cream company for trademark infringement but failed.

      • @jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de
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        425 days ago

        You just need to do the kind of mess that lands you in the news in such a way that people associate Name+Trade Area with you and you alone.

        I’m pretty sure that if Madoff had tried to trademark his surname for financial services before he croaked it would have been granted.