Someone Has Stolen My Business Name!

http://www.nominet.org.uk/disputes/drs/

CityWalk wrote: »

i'm not bothered about the website that much it was own fault for not renewing before I went to America for a year. .com and .co.uk are both taken.

He is doing EXACTLY the same thing as me. And in the UK. I live in N.I he lives in Scotland but I have had job offers as far away as Holland.

It sucks. I was the first to come up with the name. Back in 2004. And no I didn't trademark it. Never seen the point. Reading into the law at the time where it states even if someone else trademarks the name after you and you have been using it first you have the rights to that name. Or along those lines. Plus I always looked at Trademarks as being for huge company's like Tesco or Coke etc.

Sorry...for some reason I assumed they were in America, I shouldn't post in the morning before coffee

I presume you are self employed, did you set up a dormant limited company to log your business name? It doesn't make much of a difference but stops anyone else setting up a Ltd using your name.

You could take legal advice, but you'll probably be looking at a bill over £1,000. As you haven't got a trademark, I'm presuming no Ltd logged, you let the domain names expire and you haven't been trading for a year I don't think you have the strongest of cases.

That's just a lay opinion though...please take legal advice for a proper opinion. Is your name really worth that sort of cost though?

I'll admit to not knowing much about the law surrounding this but as you are a mobile disco (not a huge multinational company or franchise etc) you have been out for a year, you have no trademark and no limited company and you and the other company are in different countries, I don't see how you'd have a legal case here.

There are lots of small companies with the same name, if it's not trademarked then surely it's just tough luck?

I'd carry on, get a different domain and just forget the other company.

bigcatman wrote: »

This is strange as I was going to post something like this on the board.
We are in the same situation with a company over in Bolton.
Nothing to do with a mobile disco name however.
They have registered as a Ltd company this year and are using the same name as one of our t/a names.
We registered this name via a domain name since 2008 and have proof of this.
The domain name has been dormant until this year as a product we where going to import through this company name fell through.
Where do we stand on this?
Can this company legally use our t/a name considering that we had it registered first and they are a LTD company?

Domain name registration doesn't count for much when it comes to protecting a business name. A "trading as" name doesn't count for much either as there is no register for these...I can be self employed and set up a dozen t/a names tomorrow for example.

If your t/a name was well known and they were passing themselves off as your company you might have a case. It seems your t/a name was dormant though so it sounds like this isn't the case.

I take it your name wasn't trademarked and you didn't set up a dormant limited company to protect the business name?

This issue is coming up fairly regularly, I must urge anyone with a company name that is important to them to take professional advice...it will cost but it's the only way to protect against these incidents. I know a UK company that is forever having to fight to protect it's name worldwide and even they don't win every case despite having done everything right (trademarks only cover certain classes of use), if you don't cover yourself to start with your chances will be much smaller.