Can “Flood Busters” be used as a legal name for a water mitigation company?
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Can “Flood Busters” be used as a legal name for a water mitigation company?
Thinking of a name for a water mitigation company and thought about “Flood Busters.” Any issue here with the Ghost Busters idea? Can we legally use the circle with a line through it as well?
Asked on April 10, 2011 under Business Law, Georgia
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 13 years ago | Contributor
While you're to be commended for wondering about this, the answer is, you should be fine. The notion of circle with line through it and "-Busters" as a name is very descriptive--that is, rather than being a made up or fanciful name, such as calling a water mitigation company "Xeryphium" (for example), it describes what you do--and any "-Busters" name that is relevant to the product or service is similarly descriptive. Descriptive names are very hard to trademark in the first instance, and even when trademarked, tend to be very narrowly construed. So "Flood Busters" should not infringe on "Ghost Busters" or any other "-Busters" name. Similarly, as long as there is not a company operating in your space with a similar name (e.g. "Water Busters" as another water mitigation company), you should not have any unfair competition issues.
You should check, to make sure no one else is using "Flood Busters" or something too similar already in your marketplace; if they are not, you should be ok using this.
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