Q: Hi, I'm starting a t-shirt business with my own hand drawn and painted designs and have a q on what I can legally sell.
One of my simpler designs consists of a single word (not a brand or anything) with a symbol at the end. A prominent clothing brand uses the same word on their tshirts but their font is different and they don't have a symbol. Is it fair game if mine is different? I looked in the trademark and copyright databases and this brand has other entries for their clothes but nothing about this particular word on a t-shirt. I also found other companies with trademarks of using this word on objects like paintbrushes, etc. But my question is, if my font is hand drawn (unique) with a symbol and looks different, does that make me different enough to not have issues down the road? Can a company kind of have a monopoly on a word? Thank you!
D
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A: Firs question is the identical word generic / commonplace? A company can trademark a word to identify the source of it's good and distinguish it, but it wouldn't be able to if the word is generic or commonplace. Another company can't use that identical word in the same industry or for the same product if the competitor has a simple word mark, but if they have a graphic then you can arguably use the same word. There is a lot of nuance to TM and Copyright law, so tread carefully. If you want to private message me and disclose the word I can give you a better opinion.
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