You don't have to be a name-dropper to get tripped up by the name game JOHH HARRIS discovers.
A couple of weeks ago, I was roped into the role of MC at my mate David Helllaby’s funeral in Brisbane. In-between my attempts to attract the mourners’ attention away from food and drink, I wandered around chatting to people, most of whom I did not know. After saying hello to one chap, I almost fell over when the bloke shaking my hand introduced himself as David Hellaby. “It must have been a bit of a shock when you read the death notice in the paper,” I said. “Actually, we didn’t see the paper,” David answered, “We just got a lot of phone calls from worried friends.” Apparently the still-breathing David Hellaby had actually met my mate once, so he’d decided to pop in to pay his final respects. While this Dave double-up caused only minor confusion at the funeral, the name game can create a great deal of grief if you don’t pay attention to it. For example, when a business offers similar services under a similar name. In March this year, I was indulging in the narcissistic practice of googling my own website – www.impress.com.au – a web address I registered in 1995, the year after I set up my PR company. In second place beneath my website, I found a listing for www.impressmedia.com.au As you do, I clinked on the link - to find the website for a Queensland-based PR agency called Impress Media. I called the Queensland Office of Business Names who told me that they fine with a sole trader registering a business name similar to mine to offer the same services. Next, I called a lawyer who told me the problem was that I had never registered trademark protection for the name “Impress Media” in relation to PR services. He said my only options were to send a warning letter and, if that was ignored, to launch a costly legal action. Although the lawyer wrote a letter to the address for Impress Media in Queensland, we discovered that the principal of that business had already relinquished the business name after learning of my company from a friend in Adelaide. Eventually, I paid him $100 to transfer the impresmedia.com.au URL from his name to my company and he has an open invitation to drop by for a drink next time he’s in Adelaide. While two similar businesses might have shared a similar name in separate parts of the country 20 years ago, today, the Web eliminates the potential for that sort of blissfully ignorant coexistence. I count myself lucky that the gentleman in Queensland voluntarily let go of the business name and URL once he realised that an honest mistake had been made. But I’m not taking any more chances – my trademark application was made in May.
John Harris is managing director of Impress Media Australia. Email
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