Trademarks

[geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA]

 Jennifer Jelinek wondered <<A small company has been using
 a name, but has not registered it as a trademark. Another
 company (in a different, unrelated industry) decides to
 adopt that name for itself and trademark it. Does
 the first company (which has been using the name longer)
 have any first rights to the name? Does the first company
 even care, since the second company is not in any way,
 shape, or form a competitor?>>

 Interestingly enough, this exact thing happened to IBM.
 Working from memory: A few years back, PC Magazine reported
 that IBM, which has been using the trademark "Big Blue" for
 years, took a mom and pop computer store of the same name
 to court over trademark infringement. IBM lost the case,
 and earned considerable bad publicity for picking on "the
 little guy". The context of your specific problem is
 different enough that I'd bet the answer depends more on
 how good your lawyer is than on trademark law. _Speaking as
 a nonlawyer_, I'd speculate that prior use of the term
 would supercede the application for a trademark; indeed,
 the trademark registration process is supposed to include a
 name search.

 But more realistically, I doubt that anyone would be served
 by making a fuss over this: even Microsoft hasn't taken our
 local glaziers to court over attaching their name to
 windows hardware. <grin>

 --Geoff Hart     @8^{)}     geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
 Disclaimer: Speaking for myself, not FERIC.