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Amber Young wonders: <<If a logo/name is registered, I cannot use it as my
own. (If the trademark is pending, I can, correct?)>>
If a name is registered as a trademark, the other company can stop you from
using it and possibly sue for damages if you persist. If it's unregistered
but they've applied for registration, you'd be unwise to use it because once
approved, they can stop you from using it. Why go to all the trouble of
having to rewrite all your documentation to eliminate the old trademark,
insert the new one, and spend months or years teaching the new name to your
customers?
<<I'm taking manuals from a small company in England and making them ours
(per our agreement with them) and it seems they have invented a product and
named it something that already exists: RoBoX. When I pull it up on the
web, every possible way to
spell and capitalize this word is already taken... So, where can I find out
which spellings of this word are registered trademarks?>>
There are trademark registries around the world that you could consult, but
the more important question is why you'd want to use a word that presumably
thousands of people already understand to mean something else. Keep using
that word and all you're doing is advertising someone else's product.
Your efforts would be better spent coming up with a unique name that you can
use without any hindrance or permission and that you can use to begin
building a "brand" identity. From where I sit, "Robox" in any spelling you
care to name tells me nothing about what your product is or does. That's
usually a really bad sign for a name.
--Geoff Hart, geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada
580 boul. St-Jean
Pointe-Claire, Que., H9R 3J9 Canada
"Wisdom is one of the few things that look bigger the further away it
is."--Terry Pratchett
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