How trademarked is too trademarked?

[jnt8686]

I have recently concluded the name search for my product/company by stumbling upon an elegant "web 2.0" nonsense word name. It is short, easy to pronounce yet spelled unusually, and attractive to look at.

The .com domain is being occupied by a squatter, but that doesn't matter, because the .org domain works fine for me.

However, an industrial steel manufacturer in Germany markets a brand of structural steel under this name. My product doesn't have the slightest thing to do with structural steel, and our target demographics do not overlap at all.

I could change the spelling by throwing in an extra vowel or consonant, but I would prefer not to. Is it safe for me to use this name for my company and product?

[Encrypted]

I don't really see an issue here. I'd use it.

[noob]

In almost every case imaginable, it won't become a problem unless your business is worth a lot. And by a lot I don't mean a few million. I mean a few hundred million or more. At that point, if anyone who holds a trademark wants to be a prick, then they'll sue. If you're not worth that much, its not even worth the litigation money for them.

Example: The World Wrestling Federation was started in the 1960s and started using the WWF name (along with WWF.com domain) in the late 70s. Another company called World Wide Funds (also WWF) started using the acronym the same year. The World Wrestling Federation used the WWF name for more than two decades but when they finally got big and was worth something, the World Wide Fund sued them in 2000. The result was the World Wrestling Federation changing their name to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).

Long story short, if your business is not going to be the next billion dollar company or multi-hundred million dollar company, you got very little to worry about. And if it does end up being worth that much, I doubt you have much to worry about either way. Having said that, Web 2.0 is a very common and broad term widely used these days.

Bare in mind neither I, nor probably everyone else on this forum, is an attorney and you should really seek real legal advice but at the end of the day, I wouldn't really worry about it much (but don't take my word for it, seek actual advice). As a recommendation, I would stay away from the name as there was a lot of hype in the past 4-5 years around that term and a lot of people have grown a hatred for the misuse of that term. While most people don't care, its probably better to name your business something related to what you're doing.

[jnt8686]

Thanks for all the advice, guys. I didn't think it would end up being an issue, but you've put my mind at ease. As for the "Web 2.0" I was just referring to the style of name, being made up of letters purely to sound good. Look at "Squidoo", or "Meebo". My company isn't even an internet company, although the web site will be important.

A lot of companies that were around long before the internet use that style of name also, think of "Xerox" or "Pepsi".