Patenting a name.

No, you register it. Google 'company name'

Unless you plan to deliver the eggs using Star Trek style teleportation (i.e. a new, non-obvious invention) then the answer is no - patents are for inventions.

Look at trademarks for the company name and copyright for any logos or other artwork.

VH.

A quick Google search finds that there is already an egg supply business in Newton Abbot called "The Egg Basket", so you would not be able to register it as a trademark. ASAIK there would be no problem with you using it as your business name as long as they are not both registered with Companies House as private limited companies, but you wouldn't be able to stop other people from using it.

No.

You Trademark it.

Now that would be a neat trick.

Logos and artwork can be registered as trade marks too - sometimes more readily than names can.

Colin Bignell

They do not appear to have registered the name as a trade mark, so there is nothing to stop the OP applying to do so.

Colin Bignell

I have been though this (registering a name as a trademark) some years ago, also in the food industry.

It is not necessarily possible, as I recall, to register such trade marks. "The Egg Basket" might be deemed to wide reaching to qualify for trademark status.

What you could do is have a logo designed incorporating the name "The Egg Basket" and try to register the whole design as a trademark.

Registering a company and calling the "The Egg Basket Ltd" might give you some protection too.

There are trademark specialists who can advise and help you with this, but be warned, they don't come cheap. (Cheap! Eggs! Geddit!)

I think you'll find thats been patented already..or at least, the warp drive has :-)

"nightjar .uk.com>"

AIUI from a short company training session I had on this several years ago you can use a registered trade mark (R), or just that you are using a term as a trademake (TM). Registering the trade mark gives you certain protection, but generally it is not possible to register one that is so possibly common and especially one that is already in commercial, and more especially in the same commercial sector. You would be quite free to say "The Egg Basket TM", but this actually gives you no legal protection against others using the name except to prevent anyone else from registering it exclusively. Somewhere I had some notes on this which will give it more clearly than I have here. I'll see if I can find them somewhere.

In article , Colin Reed writes

Wrong. You have common-law trademark rights.

AIUI this would only apply to the company that uses the name first - even if they don't claim the TM mark - and as I said the simple Google search found an existing business already trading with this name.

Not the notes that I used to have but see

for reference.

As I have registered a mark that was a name used by another company in the same market sector, I beg to differ.

Colin Bignell

In message , nightjar writes

The Trade Marks Registry does not know all the trade marks are in use everywhere in the UK, and cannot be expected to. What they do when you apply to register your mark is search their own records of marks previously registered for the same or similar goods and report any apparent conflicts. If there are no apparent conflicts, they will register your mark.

However, it's nothing to be proud of that you've registered a mark that is used by another company in the same market sector. In fact, it's an admission that your trade mark registration is almost certainly invalid and unenforceable against anyone else. So, from what you say, it seems your registration certificate may be just a worthless bit of paper.

In article , nightjar As I have registered a mark that was a name used by another company in the

Why don't you tell us what it is, so we can avoid your products?

-- Richard

In article , Norman Wells writes

You are absolutely correct, somebody has done that to me.

The fact that they *deliberately* registered a trademark that they

*knew* someone else in the same trade was using and had used for a long time speaks volumes for their lack of integrity.

Their searches by their agent were defective and I have correspondence with them and ample proof of my own common-law trademark rights predating their limited use of the name by quite a few years. In addition I hold all the main domain names to support my trademark rights and have done for some years without any challenge, legal or otherwise.

The lack of any challenge and their lack of any domain names to support their registered trademark speaks volumes about the weakness of their position.

In message , Mr X writes

But it doesn't matter really. All they've done is pour good money into obtaining a registration that can't be enforced.

That's a bit harsh on the poor old agent, I reckon. He can't be expected to know every single trade mark that's in use in the UK on every piece of merchandise, any more than the Trade Marks Registry can. There's just no way of finding that information out, and I bet he told his client just that. What the agent will have done is conduct a proper and thorough search of *registered* marks, which he should of course have got right. But your mark wasn't registered, you say, and so may not have popped its head over the parapet.

It's one of the advantages of registration that, if anyone does try to register a similar mark in your field, the Trade Marks Registry itself will prevent him doing so. Otherwise, it's down to you.

However, that is going to change. The Trade Marks Registry conducted a consultation on it earlier this year, asking people for their views on various options.

The option which has now been chosen is that the Trade Marks Registry will notify the owners of any relevant earlier registered trade marks. But they won't refuse to register the later mark. It will be up to the owner of the earlier mark to negotiate with the applicant for the later mark, or to file a formal opposition against it.

The current plan is to implement this in October 2007.

The consultation document is here:

The conclusions are here: