Business Question

When i started our shop, i made sure no one else had the same name before i would use it.

My Question is, What can be done if someone else is now using the same name?

Nothing.

Linden Labs currently offers no mechanism for one to protect one's business name.

very true

it was about 3 months after I opened "Colette's Body Shop" that someone opened "The Body Shop"

Luckily no one has decided to use "Colette's Body Shop" except me - so far.

it's just going to be confusing now people will think it's the same company just a different add.

You could ask the person to change their name, or change yours. That's about it though.

And people might also think that both are something to do with the RL "The Body Shop"?

I think I'm safe with "Squeeze One Plaza" and "SqueezetronicksZ CyberIndustries"!

"If you want my body and you think I'm sexy
Come on, sugar, let me know
If you really need me just reach out and touch me
Come on, honey, tell me so"



Sorry, I couldn't resist.

I would contact them and explain that you had the name first and would appreciate if they could choose something new. If their business is new (i.e. they have not invested much in the name) and they are not trying to leverage the popularity of your name, they will probably oblige you and change the name.

On the other hand, they might be purposely trying to create confusion, or perhaps they have some other connection to the name. In these cases more negotiation will be required.

Most of the time people choose their names without properly/thoroughly researching existing uses. Most people want to build their own brand identity and not have their product or service confused with another. Unless that other product is Coke ... then all bets are off

All you can do is trademark the name in RL. It cost about $300 USD. Second Life is just getting too big to rely on polite business acknowledgements. Opportunists will come and ride on your coattails or even try to greif you by using your name. Your only recourse is a trademark.

i did IM about this, and he/she is not getting the point. Even a friend of mine thought it was my shop, i siad no, i don't do tattoos This is so wrong. SL should come up with something to protect a company name, you come up with, so others don't use it. It really stinks, so many work very hard for their shop/business and come up with a name, for someone else to tack, Tattoo at the end of it.

SL money is not real money and businesses should be created for fun. at least this what i read abouts. but anyway,

you want a unique name for the biz, try your avatar name. connect it really hard with the biz name. no way people will confuse that or get something similar because nicks are unique - about the only thing that stays unique for long. and your nick is cool too, mine most of people can't even spell it so you're kinda lucky

Even tho not knowing that, i think i got pretty close to it. well, i used part of my name in it

Dzogchen - Tibetan, by any chance?

Luck's got nothing to do with it dzog, you chose it.

lol... wat happened someone open a "Colette's Body Shop 2"?

someday, they will try to coordinate all these for a better place

LOL... i couldnt get wat u mean, till i saw your name..... hahaaaa yea.. so much of squeezesss, still can breath or not?

cheeeeeeers

If it was your last name, other people have the same last name and could well have a perfect right to name their shop with the Fallon surname. In fact some other Fallon business that has been around longer, might just as easily insist YOU change your business name -- but they'd also have little claim to it.

If it's something with Evilpony, then it seems less coincidental.

edit: from the reference to your competitor selling tattoos, I guess it must be Evil Intentions? That gets into a bit more of a gray area ...

I'm tempted to start a business called IBM and see how both the Lindens and IBM react then.... I might even start selling computers, servers and atm machines lol...

/me prods Mars..... doooooooooooooooooooo ittttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt !!!!!!!!!!!!

Surefire way to get the issue addressed

LOL.. I'll make an alt first.. nothing to loose then LOL

Just to pop in some possible ways this can happen, without it being assumed the person has taken the name knowing someone else has it. When searching the name (I wont mention it, its been mentioned and can be found via the OPs profile) in places I saw a lot of one particular place where they sell their items but the shop name was *not* in the title, only in the description, and I found one shop (belonging to the Tat person) with the exact name in the title.

Looking at both profiles, the tat person is older. Why does that matter? Well, they could have created their shop and kept it out of searches by having it simply IN a mall that didnt put businesses names in it before. Or, they did search and only saw all the mall names that come up for the OPs locations, and didnt take the time to read through all of the ads to see if someone was using the same name. Any number of things could have resulted in the use of the same name.

Either way, it is indeed a rather common phrase and it was bound to see multiple store names using it. Take other words for example, like Wicked. We have Wicked Isle, Wicked Mall, Wicked this n that n all those other things. It happens. I have it with my own name, having used my last in game name for my shop for, uh, a long stinkin time, but there are multiple other Dawn named shops out there that just used their name (or for whatever reason).

Unless you use a completely original name (that means common phrases are, well, common) you run the risk of someone else coming up with the same idea. It stinks, it really does, but LL really *CANT* do anything (esp when a common phrase, again) because hey...how do they know you had the name first? How do they know the other user didnt look and wasnt able to find a store with that name...the list goes on and on as to why they cant and wont do anything.

Maybe just wait for their business to bust or change your name? *shrugs* Another of those oh so fun issues within SL

Thank you all for your replys and help. i'll just have to keep my fingers crossed and keep working hard. Thank you all again

I completely agree. Real world trade marks will hold up in secondlife.

Either trademark your company name in RL, or nothing you can do if someone decides to start using it.


Keep in mind that it also depends what you and their business revolves around as its perfectly ok, when it comes to trade marks, to use the same name as someone else....as long as the business ventures are 2 different things.