Fictitious Company Name

TimothyJinx

TimothyJinx

Well-known member
We are finishing up the script for our next short and we need a fictitious company name. What are the rules or gotcha's when doing this? I've googled the name we are looking at and there are a few companies using the name in some form. For example, there may be an XYZ Landscaping or an XYZ Technologies, etc.

I feel pretty confident we could tag another word onto the name and be safe. But could this come up down the road and cause any trouble? Any thoughts or experiences?
 
Talk to your lawyer for a definite answer.

For a not so definite answer, be as careful as is reasonable. Consider how generic sounding the name you're using is, how different the industries are, so forth. If there's any chance the company could argue it hurts their name you have a problem.
 
For trademark purposes, you'll frequently find that the same words are used in different business lines, by different companies, and it's not an infringement. For example, a company can choose and even trademark a name that has absolutely no prospect of confusing the customer of another/existing company. If your name was Wilford Cox, and you were a landscaper, you could likely trademark Cox Landscaping Services without any worries about Cox Communications or Cox Cable etc having any say about it.

A Thomson & Thomson search is done by lawyers to verify the existence of other businesses that may potentially cause you a problem with your chosen company name. You can also conduct a limited search by searching the trademarks at www.uspto.gov .

If you're creating a fictional company, with its own fictional logo, and you do some reasonable due diligence with the USPTO and find that there is no legit company with the exact same, or confusingly similar, name... then you're probably on reasonably safe ground. Of course, if you really want to be sure, you should be contacting an attorney that specializes in this area.
 
The usual standard is can your fictitious company be confused by a reasonable person, with an existing company?

If your logo/logotype, company mission etc are substantially different, you should be okay.
 
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