Copyright

[r6blacky]

Anyone know anything about copyright and company names?

We set up a company February last year and today we've received an email from someone saying they have copyright on part of the name. They appear to have registered their company 9 months after ours?

For example our name is say ABC Printing Limited and the other company is ABC scaffolding ltd and he says he has copyright on the ABC part of the name

Thanks in advance

[r6blacky]

The part of the name that is in question is the same.

Does the fact that we were registered first have any impact or are they just trying their luck?

Thanks

[r6blacky]

Thanks for the responses so far.

I'm going to investigate this further today and as you say Copyright is probably not the correct term and we probably should be the ones complaining to them.

Will see how things develop but it's made me think perhaps we need to look at trademark ourselves.

[r6blacky]

We've just received an email (from the directors hotmail account) saying X is a copyrighted company name.

Tempted to simply ignore it but don't want it to rear its head again in the future.

[r6blacky]

I haven't ignored your post at all, I'm simply looking for further comments or experience.

Thanks anyway.

All that jazz said:

Indeed. Clearly my post yesterday at 8.03pm was ignored.

[r6blacky]

Thanks for all the responses.

I've checked on the IPO website and can't find any Trademark for the name (or part of) in question.

[r6blacky]

We are IT software & Consultancy and the other company is Event Planning - so not likely to get confused.

They are still claiming to have copyright and TM - even if they do have a TM it would not be for the same class.