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Subject:Trademark question From:Rebecca Carr <rebecca -at- WHITE -dot- SC -dot- TI -dot- COM> Date:Fri, 23 Jan 1998 11:44:16 -0600
The company that has trademarked the name has the right to use it and
could take the other company to court on it if it chose to. But, if
they are different unrelated industries, the company with the trademark
probably wouldn't care and would not be affected by the other company's
use of it...unless they felt it damaged them in some way.
Yes, there are many instances where a name is trademarked by several
different companies. As long as they are completely different products.
no problem exists (according to our legal dept here). But in world of
computers, electronics, and semiconductors, one must be very careful
because so many similar products exist. If I were the small company
"using" the name in question, I would go ahead and trademark it for my
product, or change it slightly and then trademark it (just to be safe).
The small company is taking a slight risk by using the name without
the trademark because another company with a similar product may decide
to trademark it for themselves.
