Possible legal issues with similar company name?
 

Just seeing if I can get some insight from the GFY legal experts here.

Say there is an existing company named "TelToon" selling widgets on a B2C basis, and only seems to do business in one country.

Your company will be based in a different country, and named "TeleToon" and is a B2B service provider.

The businesses are non-competitive.

Say they own the domain TelToon.com and you own TeleToon.com

INAL, but I don't see any legal grounds for a cyber squatting case in the event of a domain dispute.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Go for it man. Fuck them! :thumbsup

In the scenario you presented there are no problems.

teletoon is a tv station in canada iirc, so you might have problems with that...

Already well under way :thumbsup

I never thought of it as an issue, but it has been raised as a concern by a colleague.

Not the actual company names, just used it as an example. Same format though.

That's what I thought. Thanks for your input.

The .com might be an issue if the other company is American.

If you are in two different industries and you can not easily confuse the two, you shouldn't have a problem.

That doesn't mean they won't try to fuck with you, but you should have decent ground to stand if they do.

Example: Toyota the car manufacture vs Toyota the pastry shop on the corner. It is clear one is not the other and you should not be a problem. But if that shop had anything to do with making products that could confuse consumers in any way, making them think the car manufacturing company was involved, you would have problems.

That said, you should still consult a trademark attorney just to make sure yours is not too close. Whatever small fee you would pay him is nothing compared to getting your balls sued off and losing your company later.

Why start a marathon with a weak branding leg to stand on.

Sue them back...