Just think about it – your parents have named you Microsoft. Now you grow up and you are signing this on your credit card, receipts, bills… your home address, salary accounts reads this. Can Microsoft – the IT mammoth – sue you for infringing upon their name?
Or what about baby Reebok? Will the sports company sue you?
You know why I got thinking on this seemingly crazy idea? Well, it started with my pet Alsatian. His name is Diesel – I had given the folks an option of Diesel and Antonio, they went with the former. Anyway, his mum’s name was Pepsi I have found out much later. So, I am thinking can the Pepsi guys say hey that the liquid beverage named bitch (pardon me, but that is what a female dog is called) is their property?
Are you actually aware that there are many names that have become public property like say Benetton, McDonald or Sothebys – surnames that command respect and bags of green…the currency kind.
What if your name becomes as famous as Calvin Klein or Giorgio Armani, eh? Will you go around like a second fiddle to the famous, or would you opt to change it? What if you already have a blog, Second Life avatar and an email address by that name? Can the patent lawyers hunt you down and make you relinquish your identity?
If that made you paranoid, go out relax and order a nice cheesy pizza at Dominoes…or is that your name… hahahahaaaa (devilish)
4 comments:
very interesting..althought i dont think aveena would go out to be a huge brand..it was hard enough finding it in the baby name dictionary..but..if it does, then hey..i will definately change the way things are going..Hey, gotta reap the benifits of my name:)
First off, we're not talking about copyright law. You can not copyright a name or title as that is not considered a creative work of authorship. The law is actually Trademark or TM.
A TM is very limited in nature. You can only, truly infringe on a TM when you use the mark to either gain an unfair business advantage (ex: naming your shoe company Reebok) or inventing a relationship that doesn't exist.
Could your name be infringing? If you opened up a competing store and used your name as the store name, possibly. But then it wouldn't be the name itself, just the act of using it to compete with the original.
Trademarks are very narrowly defined, even to the point that multiple businesses can have the same name so long as they are in different fields. Think Apple Music and Apple Computer.
All in all, the greatest danger that stems from being named Rebook or McDonald's is probably the severe beatings you can expect to take on the plagryound in elementary school.
Still though, TM law is not my area of expertise so check behind me on all of this. But it should be pretty accurate.
Hope this helps!
hi jonathan, thx for info on trade marks.. funny how i didn’t realise that i should have used that word instead… hmm, i am actually pretty glad u took the ‘Can your name be a copyright violation?’ post seriously. I wrote more with humour, but ya had pondered over the consequence.. And gosh can I tell you,, ur story reminds me of my predicament…I have never posted my poetry coz i have always been scared of being plagiarised.. Glad you are fighting the battle, more power to you!
I have heard about people copyrighting their names, in an attempt to beat the government. In say taxes, or even say beating a triffic ticket, by charging a police officer, or even judge with copyright enfringment when useing their copyrighted nae in say a triffic ticket or any nso called legal document
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