Possible to "patent" a very generic company name

[esllou]

I am writing on behalf of a friend here in Italy where I live....

I know the laws here in Italy are not necessarily the same as even other states in Europe but I would like to get some general feedback on this....

is it possible to patent a company name as generic as the names of two countries put together?

could I go to the patent office and say: "I want to register FranceSweden as my company name and no-one can use from now on"?

would that run? And if I then made a website called FranceSweden.com or .it or .co.uk or whatever, that that person could then say "no, I have been using FranceSweden as a company name for 20 years and I patented it last year."

any ideas....?

[blaze]

Perhaps trademark might be the correct term.

[esllou]

that is what I thought too...which is why I put patent in inverted commas in the title....

can you even patent a company name?

the third party involved has come back and said "don't try and use that name, I patented it last year"

[billegal]

In the US you'd probably be talking about trademark for the name. One problem you'll face if you try to register this is that the term might be considered geographically misdescriptive. This means you can't register a mark for something as "Washington Apples" if they come from Georgia. It might also be considered unfair competition if people are misled about the origin of the goods or services offered under the mark. By putting the two country names together, you're likely to run into a problem with at least one of the countries I would think.

[lucertola]

The windows vs. lindows case is a good example of the kind of headaches involved...

Judges in the US & Europe have been making decisions both ways & I think lindows decided to change name because it just cost too much to keep up the lawsuits even if, in principle, most of the courts (if memory serves me) did decide that the word 'windows' is too generic to own...Sticky me if you need more help -- i'm in Italy too & have some friends at the FSFE who might know more...

[Sanenet]

AFAIK, you can't trademark a generic placename by itself. So getting "FranceGermany" would probably be out.

Check with any halfway decent company lawyer, they will have a list of the "stop" words you can't register.