08.24.09
Poor Man Trademark Diligence
If your trade name is going to be crucial to your business–and perhaps even if it’s not going to be crucial–you may want to do a trademark search to see whether there are any other businesses already using the name. You can hire a company online to do the search (type “Trademark search” in Yahoo, and you’ll get plenty of options–needless to say, we don’t vouch for any of them) or you can hire an intellectual property attorney to help you.
Most new businesses, though, aren’t investing a lot of money into name recognition, so it normally isn’t cost-effective to pay for a trademark search. I typically suggest they run random searches in online search engines and see what pops up (the “poor man’s trademark search”). If they’re feeling motivated, I tell them to try the USPTO website as well. It offers free federal trademark searches.
Salient observations from the Business Law Prof Blog: “Anyone with any doubt over whether governments will inject political considerations in deals affecting government owned operating companies should take a close look at the Opel sale. GM, with its majority owned the United States government, is attempting to sell its Opel division, a major manufacturer in Germany and other European countries. The German government is willing to help finance the sale. There are at least three potential buyers: 1) A Chinese company that probably will pay the most and require the least subsidy; 2) A private equity company with a major United States investor that will pay royalties for intellectual property after the deal; and 3) A Canadian-Austrian automotive supplier (operating company) that probably will pay the least. Who is the front runner for the deal? 3, the operating company. Why? The German government, going into an election, is anxious to keep German plants open (the Canadian-Austrain company is the most likely to do so) and German officials up for re-election has been basing private equity companies and Chinese buyers. The United States government does not want to “upset” a close ally when seeking more help in Afghanistan. If GM wants to maximze the returns for its taxpayers/owners it would sell to China. No chance. GM will take the hit. When government owns businesses, investor welfare is easily and quickly sacrificed for political goals.”
