company name problem?

cyclopopcicle · 16 Jan 2008 at 19:49

hi
i have had business cards for my driving school made with the name M.S.M as my name is mark.
but today i received an email

Hi Mark,

I hope that you will be very successful with your driving school under the name of Marks School of Motoring.

I have noticed that when advertising your business you have placed the abbreviations 'MSM' above 'Marks School of Motoring'.

However, 'MSM' was registered to myself in July 1971, and therefore, you are not permitted to trade under this name.

I assume that you were not aware that 'MSM' was already registered to myself. Therefore, please remove 'MSM' from all your advertising and refrain from using it in any context in the future and no further action will be required. Please acknowledge this e-mail.

Yours sincerely, and best wishes for the future

where do i stand on this?

i have looked in yell.com and there are numerous others with this same abbreviations on the advert, should he not also contact them?

or is there nothing he can do?

cheers

cyclopopcicle · 16 Jan 2008 at 19:57

i have just checked and he is an ADI also, as are all the others i have checked on yell.com

i have checked his address and i know the street very well as i grew up there, and my parents still live very near (within 3 streets) and i have never seen an instructors car there.

cyclopopcicle · 16 Jan 2008 at 20:12

how would i go about checking this?
cheers

cyclopopcicle · 16 Jan 2008 at 20:49

jonno.co.uk said:
unless he has a trademark he cannot stop you trading under that name. how he can call a 3 letter abbreviation "his" without a trademark i don't know.

look here: http://www.ipo.gov.uk/tm/t-find/t-find-text/

had a look here at the dates between jan 1971
and december 1972 and it shows nothing up

cyclopopcicle · 17 Jan 2008 at 00:36

here is a copy of an email i am going to send back to him (have not yet) what do you think? should i add more/take off ?

Hi
Thanks for your email, I was not aware of any local MSM driving schools, and would like to point out that my trading name is marks school of motoring not MSM
MSM is just part of my name i.e. Marks School of Motoring.
So see no harm in what I have advertised as
Also I have done a quick search on yell.com and see that there are 43 driving schools with MSM as part of their name, I take it you have contacted these also? Here is a link to that particular search
http://www.yell.com/ucs/UcsSearchAc...oa=&M=0&ssm=0&rad=&lCOption32=Driving+Schools

could I also enquire where you registered the mark MSM

cyclopopcicle · 17 Jan 2008 at 00:38

also i am a BSM instructor, just advertising for myself to get extra custom, so the only link to me is my cards and whatever i put on places like yell.com etc, so there is no car advertising by banner on the roof

cyclopopcicle · 17 Jan 2008 at 08:00

dangerousmouse said:
on your advertising/promotional info you do display the business name (mark's school of motoring) aswell as msm?

yes

cyclopopcicle · 18 Jan 2008 at 08:16

so what do you think of the email i made?
should i send that or does it need modifying?

cheers for the advice guys