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Using Trademarked Names in Book Titles?

by Derrick0408
5 replies
Hi,

I was wondering what the legality is of using a trademarked name in your book title?

For instance "How to sell on eBay" - I imagine eBay is a trademark, does anyone know what the legal situation is with referring to a company in your book title?

Thanks,
Derrick
#book #names #titles #trademarked
  • Profile picture of the author dave147
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    • Profile picture of the author Derrick0408
      I thought that might be the case.
      I suppose that all of the guides which sell on the Warrior Forum etc like "Facebook Marketing tips" or "eBay Riches" etc are just under these companies radars.

      But really I was wondering if you were to try and write a printed book about eBay (eBay is merely an example) - I was wondering the legality of using a trademarked name in a book title?
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  • Profile picture of the author Troy Trump
    Defiantly stay away from the "For Dummies" in the title. I've read many cases of the people at Wiley sending out threats.
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  • Profile picture of the author Null-11
    Well lets just get this out of the way:
    I am not a lawyer, I have no experience in lawmaking or legal services of any kind, so you should in no way listen to anything I ever say. In fact, you should never follow any advice I give. Consult your lawyer before taking any further action.

    OK so now that that's out of the way...

    I'd recommend doing google searches for websites and products that contain the trademarked term in the domain or title. Also look through clickbank for a product that uses eBay's trademark.

    If there are an abundance of sites using the trademarked term I think you ought to be good, however, this IS a legal issue and it could become serious if eBay had something against you or your product, so I'd recommend talking to a lawyer.

    You could even email eBay's support with your question. It never hurts to ask.
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  • Profile picture of the author kindsvater
    Derrick:

    Davd147 may be well intentioned, but he is not an attorney and does not know what he is talking about. Just ignore that post.

    Folks, you can properly use use trademarks in book titles, just like the 'For Dummies' series uses literally hundreds of trademarks in its book titles.

    There could be millions of books with trademarks in the title. Wonder why??

    You cannot use the 'For Dummies' trademark in a book title because that would cause consumer confusion about who is creating that book: The Dummies people or you.

    Putting it together, For Dummies can write a book called Google Adsense for Dummies. (That is a real book.) That uses Google's trademark, but there is no consumer confusion as there is no claim it was written by Google.

    I can write a book titled: Brian Kindsvater's Guide to Making Money With Google.

    It could be a different matter if I wrote a book titled: Google's Official Guide to Making Money.

    Of course, include proper disclaimers and a notice as to who owns the Google trademark.

    Don't confuse 'regular' trademark law with what you may otherwise read about on this forum, and elsewhere, about domain names. Domain names are a separate category unto themselves because of a concept referred to as initial consumer confusion about who owns a domain before it is visited. It has lesser application to books.

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