An incident came up recently with a friend of mine regarding naming businesses, and I figured that if I got 10 or 20 marginally informed opinions on it, it may provide a guide.  Here's the situation: They chose a unique (and expressive) name for their business, and have spent four years in the Twin Cities building it's reputation and trying to establish a reputation for excellence.  Within the last year or so, a person, also located in the Twin Cities, in the same line of business, started a business and gave it the same name except for one relatively insignificant word.  When called, she admitted that she was trying to use my friend's reputation to build her own business, but that the state and her (husband) lawyer both said it was legal for her to do that. I believe that is illegal, and certainly unethical.  So what next? Take it to court?  Can I name a business McDonuld's Hamburgers , with a yellow sign, and be free from lawsuits?  What are the issues involved?

An incident came up recently with a friend of mine regarding naming businesses, and I figured that if I got 10 or 20 marginally informed opinions on it, it may provide a guide.  Here's the situation: They chose a unique (and expressive) name for their business, and have spent four years in the Twin Cities building it's reputation and trying to establish a reputation for excellence.  Within the last year or so, a person, also located in the Twin Cities, in the same line of business, started a business and gave it the same name except for one relatively insignificant word.  When called, she admitted that she was trying to use my friend's reputation to build her own business, but that the state and her (husband) lawyer both said it was legal for her to do that. I believe that is illegal, and certainly unethical.  So what next? Take it to court?  Can I name a business McDonuld's Hamburgers , with a yellow sign, and be free from lawsuits?  What are the issues involved? Your friend should call a lawyer immediately, preferably one that specializes in trademark law.

naming businesses, and I figured that if I got 10 or 20 marginally informed opinions on it, it may provide a guide.  Here's the situation: They chose a unique (and expressive) name for their business, and have spent four years in the Twin Cities building it's reputation and trying to establish a reputation for excellence.  Within the last year or so, a person, also located in the Twin Cities, in the same line of business, started a business and gave it the same name except for one relatively insignificant word.  When called, she admitted that she was trying to use my friend's reputation to build her own business, but that the state and her (husband) lawyer both said it was legal for her to do that. I believe that is illegal, and certainly unethical.  So what next? Take it to court?  Can I name a business McDonuld's Hamburgers , with a yellow sign, and be free from lawsuits?  What are the issues involved? ... Certainly a lawyer will need to get involved.  The Secretary of State's office handles business names and marks. Though depending on the circumstances it may not be inexpensive. State statutes that cover this seem to be within Chapter 333 http://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/stats/333/index.html http://www.sos.state.mn.us/business/tasm.html Here are some threads from someone else that had similiar problems, not in this state, but elseware. http://makeashorter_link_.com/?S12122853 http://makeashorter_link_.com/?U41126853

They chose a unique (and expressive) name for their business, and have spent four years in the Twin Cities building it's reputation and trying to establish a reputation for excellence. I believe that is illegal, and certainly unethical. Here in Minnesota, two or more businesses can legally have the exact same name, unless one of them is incorporated, in which case, the corporate name has to be unique.  In the dot-com era, we saw all kinds of unusual business names with distored spellings and punctuation marks.  The ruling was that unique names have to be materially unique, and differences in spelling or punctuation are not sufficient. So, is the business in question incorporated, and how different are the names? -john-

naming businesses, and I figured that if I got 10 or 20 marginally informed opinions on it, it may provide a guide.  Here's the situation: They chose a unique (and expressive) name for their business, and have spent four years in the Twin Cities building it's reputation and trying to establish a reputation for excellence.  Within the last year or so, a person, also located in the Twin Cities, in the same line of business, started a business and gave it the same name except for one relatively insignificant word.  When called, she admitted that she was trying to use my friend's reputation to build her own business, but that the state and her (husband) lawyer both said it was legal for her to do that. I believe that is illegal, and certainly unethical.  So what next? Take it to court?  Can I name a business McDonuld's Hamburgers , with a yellow sign, and be free from lawsuits?  What are the issues involved? You'd be more likely to win on infringement of trademark, than on business name.

So, is the business in question incorporated, and how different are the names? Since there may be courts involved, the best I can do is give an equivalent example.  It would be the equivalent of me naming a business ByteMe Software and Computer Serive, and they started a business called ByteMe Computer Service, and provided the same service, only poorly.