Registration of Company Names - Company Formation - UK Registration Services
As Davies explains, the effect of the law relating to company names is ‘to afford a registered company something approaching an exclusive right to corporate trading under its registered name, since another company should not be registered with the same name and may be forced to change its name if that is too like the name’.
It should be accepted that there may be costs associated with a quick response
to requests for registration due to the current limits of the Registrar.
Abnormal situations do tend to happen due to extensive checking being left out.
It has happened where a company has been incorporated with a name that infringes
on existing companies trade marks
If the company name was adopted with the intention of inflicting economic loss
on the company holding the trademark, a passing off action should success. A ‘register of famous marks’
has been proposed by Watts and Walsh for referencing by the Registrar before
registration of the new name can go ahead.
Problems similar to trade mark infringement arise when companies are registered
in an opportunistic fashion. This is in anticipation of a merger between well
known companies, such as the Glaxowellcome case. A court may order the
opportunistic company to change it's name.
