Patent Attorney and Founder
I want to trademark my business i notice that there’s another company that has the same name but while mine is called xyz united their name is xyz where um now if the apparel company share the same primary mark meaning like xyz or fill in the blank or whatever it is and it’s followed by what i would describe to be a pretty descriptive trademark like where which typically means you know clothing or united which that’s kind of a throwaway term on some level um the answer is probably there’s a likelihood of confusion at least in the eyes of the uspto um that would mean that if they were registered on the federal level they’d have exclusive rights to use that name in any derivative trademarks like xyz where for example um now they may not actually register a trademark with the federal government in which case um if the whole rest of the field is clear you’d be more than welcome to register that trademark uh just know that you can but shouldn’t enforce that trademark against the senior user of the mark in the other state because ultimately if you try to enforce the trademark you might be successful but they’ll come back potentially and cancel your trademark