I was going to say the same thing. If you're planning on opening a shop, you should check to see that the name is not already being used.

I just read an article about a potential lawsuit happening over a cupcake bakery name. One says its their name to use, the other says no it belongs to them. Meanwhile, the same cupcake bakery name these two sides are fighting over, is quite common in the UK.

Originally Posted by lynn1968

heh heh, that's a cute name. i don't *think* it's a problem if another store has the same name and is in another state. besides, the 'by...' part makes it a different name, and 'cupcations' is, in my opinion, not special enough if it came down to a legal issue. i could be wrong. if you like the name, use it, and if the other cupcations has a problem with it, tell 'em politely to get bent. remember, you're a business owner ~ wimps need not apply. if they threaten to sue, tell 'em to go for it. 'cupcations' vs. 'cupcations by angel' i'd wager would be a waste of their time and money even if they stood a shot at winning. of course, their lawyer might convince them to give him $400 for a cheesy letter, but if he's not a copyright lawyer, guess what i'd tell him, too.

i don't want you to take my word for it and wind up in some kind of hassle over it, but at the same time i try to put a 'what happens in real life' tack on it, so unless you're taking away tons of online ordering business from them, i don't see why any other 'cupcations' would care. in my experience as a business owner, we try to help one another even if we are competitors. hope that helps more than it confuses....

You're not serious are you? If I had my own successful bakery, and someone else opened a bakery using my bakeries name, even in the next state, I'd be doing something about it right away. What would be the point of having my bakery, a biz I worked hard for, if everyone and their uncle was free to open a bakery with the same name? Every small or big biz hopes to be exclusive, have the best product so customers will keep coming back. If Joe blow in the next town opened a biz using my shops name, I could lose my customers to him simply because the customers would think we're one and the same.

By the by, encouraging the OP to tell another shop owner to "get bent" if she or he complained about the same name usage, is a tad childish don't you think?

While that sounds great in theory, in practice you may not have many feasible options if you choose a relatively generic, non-trademarked name for your business, and someone opens a similar-sounding business in your area.

The name of your business should not be your sole competitive advantage anyway. My bakery's d/b/a name is identical to others in my state (but not in my county, since the county business registrar will not allow for duplicate d/b/a names), so I make sure all my branding includes my business name AND a tagline stating our true competitive advantage. The domain name of our web site also reflects our unique competitive advantage and not the d/b/a name.

I may be way out in left field, but, why on earth would you choose a d/b/a name thats identical to others in your state, unless its a franchise? If one of the others with the same name is also a bakery, what happens if one of them uses contaminated food and makes people sick? Or they're not a very honest business and rip consumers off? Both highly unlikely but it could happen.

If a news report came out about "franco's" bakery making people sick as an example, and your bakeries name is also franco's bakery, it could quite easily affect your reputation too. Even if the other franco's bakery was not nearby. People hear what they want to hear. They hear the words francos bakery, that francos is bad, but they don't always pay heed to where that francos might be situated.

I don't have a bakery but if I did, I'd want to have the most unique name I could. A name that would be easy to say and one that would be remembered. I'd also do as much research as possible to make sure no one else was already using the name.

Because we liked the name, it fit our business, it was available in our county, and the other bakeries with our name are far enough away (the closest one is 90 minutes away) that it wasn't a concern.

I wouldn't care...we are far enough away that we don't share customers, our bakery only serves the local metro area. Our bakery's reputation was built on Yelp.com, and if someone posts a negative review on our Yelp page for another business (hasn't happened yet) we will simply have it removed.

We get an average of one email every few months that was meant for another bakery with our name, it doesn't take long to point the customer in the right direction.

I agree, and the trade name of our bakery (what we use in branding, advertising, and all other communication) is very unique, it's a combination of the d/b/a name and the LLC name, which succinctly communicates our competitive advantage. Our d/b/a name is "Let Them Eat Cake", the LLC name is "The Allergy-Friendly Patisserie", and the name I use in branding is "Let Them Eat Cake: The Allergy-Friendly Patisserie LLC".

The issue with Cake Boss was related to trademarks...Masters Software (the makers of cake boss software) had registered "Cake Boss" as a trademark before the Cake Boss TV show was conceived. Since both the TV show and the software were related to the same field, the TV show could not legally use the name, as the software maker trademarked it first.

If there are no live trademarks for your business name relating to your field, you do not have to worry about this type of litigation.

I read more news than just local. Plus they might think you ARE a chain since there are stores with similar names in different areas... and therefore one does something bad, they all do something bad.

Nice to know you can remove any negative review when you want. *Ahem*

That's quite a mouthful. Perhaps with a short unique name, all that could have been eliminated.

We can't get negative reviews removed whenever we want...if there is a negative review about our business, it stays up (although we can comment on it as the business owner). If someone posts a negative review about someone else's business on our Yelp page, it will be removed.

I agree, it can be a mouthful...my wife and I spent months trying to figure out a name that would convey the mission of our business, and that's what we came up with. Luckily the majority of our business comes from the web via Yelp, Google ads, and online discussion groups frequented by our target market, so the "mouthful" factor is not too much of an issue. We still answer the phone as just "Let Them Eat Cake" though.

IIRC in the past few years of operation there has only been one person who thought we were a chain, because they used to live in a metro area served by another bakery with the same name. The other bakeries with the same name are simply too far away to have any impact on our business.

Yep, as long as the other businesses serve separate metro areas. In our case, our target market is the SF Bay Area, and our closest same-name competitor serves Monterey County, which is far enough from the Bay Area to not overlap our market.

We don't have a web-based business...we have a business that serves a single metro area. Customer acquisition just happens to mostly occur on the web. If you have a true web-based business that involves shipping items nationally, you would need to be more careful about your business name since you would be targeting the entire country.

There's no limit on the length of a trademarked name (note that a trade name is not the same thing as a trademark, a trade name may or may not be trademarked), and IMO our logo presents the "really long" trade name pretty well.

I'm not sure we're going to expand into wholesale, but I don't think there will be a problem even if we end up selling wholesale in the same markets as the other retail bakeries given the uniqueness of the full trade name. I would have to do some more research on this though, and in the worst-case scenario we would just come up with a different brand for wholesale products and/or franchise expansion. Since our trade name simultaneously promotes the brand for our d/b/a and our LLC name, we could just go with our LLC name without the d/b/a when targeting a national market if there is a conflict.

Well I guess this is a case of us agreeing to disagree. I'd care a lot. Even if the other bakery with the same name as mine was 90 miles away. You say you get an average of one email every few months thats meant for one of the other bakeries with the same name. That would bother me if the emails happened to be complaints about my products or my bakery itself, when its not even my bakery the complaint is directed..

Steering the customer in the right direction to the correct bakery is great, but why put yourself in that position in the first place? And its great that you can have negative reviews removed from yelp not meant for your biz, but you wouldn't have to deal with that at all if your bakery wasn't the same name as 3 others.

Don't you sometimes wonder how many people read those negative review/s before you have them removed? Whats to stop those people from passing the word all bakeries with your bakeries name be avoided because of this or that?

Me, I'd rather not take that chance. Word of mouth can be deadly, and it doesn't even have to be you that was at fault.

"We" get it??? I don't. I'll never understand the rudeness when someone is simply sharing advice... if one doesn't like the advice--don't use it.

You admit that you're giving Jason a hard time... I don't see why. He's quick to offer help, share expertise, look up information and provide links, and supply others willingly and professionally with answers to their questions. I'd say he's an asset to the community (the community of like-minded people with a common interest sharing ideas and advice, all for free--I might add).

I'm fairly certain that it doesn't bother Jason, but it bothers me. What happens when those with knowledge to share stop participating and giving of their own precious time when it becomes obvious that it isn't appreciated? I'd wouldn't like to be the one responsible for preventing others from receiving the help they're requesting because I've pissed off those with competent answers.

I certainly see where you're coming from, but I think you're overestimating the likelihood of a given bakery with the same name getting a complaint and said complaint being posted on a public review site and the complaining party posting it on the incorrect business's page and someone reading the complaint before it is removed and the reader not realizing that the complaint is for the incorrect business.

We have never had any reviews of any kind on our Yelp page for a business other than our own, probably because Yelp segregates its site by metro area and prominently displays the location of the business. The business owner is also notified immediately when new reviews are posted on Yelp (assuming they are registered).

I would estimate that choosing a popular name for our business has cost me at most an extra 10-15 minutes per year in overhead, it really is a non-issue as far as I'm concerned. That said, if you have a choice between a common name and an uncommon name, and both names fit your business equally well, I would go with the uncommon name. But if you like a popular name and it fits then go for it (unless it's already been trademarked).

I'm not sure if your earlier reply was meant in jest (your "LOL" notwithstanding) but you were drawing conclusions about when it's safe for businesses to have the same name that I didn't necessarily agree with. I addressed each of your points in the following post with facts based on my own experience as a business owner. Can you explain what was over the top about my reply?

I do tend to be more direct than some posters here, and I apologize if you interpreted my posts as malicious, they were certainly not intended that way.

No apology necessary, but next time you feel like posting a personal attack, please do so via private message instead of cluttering up the forums.

Originally Posted by jasonkraft

No apology necessary, but next time you feel like posting a personal attack, please do so via private message instead of cluttering up the forums.

See what I mean? Always professional, takes the high road, never attacks.

I try to stand up for those who are unnecessarily attacked... there are many others that would run away, and it's sad when they leave and take their knowledge with them.

Yup, thanks for your input. Good night.

Originally Posted by lynn1968

heh heh, that's a cute name. i don't *think* it's a problem if another store has the same name and is in another state. besides, the 'by...' part makes it a different name, and 'cupcations' is, in my opinion, not special enough if it came down to a legal issue. i could be wrong. if you like the name, use it, and if the other cupcations has a problem with it, tell 'em politely to get bent. remember, you're a business owner ~ wimps need not apply. if they threaten to sue, tell 'em to go for it. 'cupcations' vs. 'cupcations by angel' i'd wager would be a waste of their time and money even if they stood a shot at winning. of course, their lawyer might convince them to give him $400 for a cheesy letter, but if he's not a copyright lawyer, guess what i'd tell him, too.

when my wife and i opened our convenience/engraving store, we had to make sure no one else in the state had the same name. our full store legal name is bizarre, so we're okay. i also advise any small business to be an LLC (limited liability company), which our accountant set-up for us. if your spouse is planning to be a partner, check first with your accountant as sometimes it's difficult to find an accountant that will handle LLCs with spouces listed, don't ask me why, all i know is that here in ohio it's not like any accountant will do it for some reason.

i personally don't see it as a problem, but i'm not canadian and maybe they have some different laws there. if it's a name you love, research the laws and if you're unsure or nervous about it just consult with a lawyer. i think that your name is different enough to warrant protection. name your shop 'sprinkles' and prepare for a new name real quick, lol, but, idk, it's just a play on words and i'm not quite convinced that there isn't a big gray area there. like if i called my shop 'cupcakery,' i don't think with a relatively obvious name like that i'd want to spend thousands of dollars battling with another bakery a thousand miles away over, particularly since all i could win was use of the name unless i could somehow prove damages, which would be impossible to do.

i don't want you to take my word for it and wind up in some kind of hassle over it, but at the same time i try to put a 'what happens in real life' tack on it, so unless you're taking away tons of online ordering business from them, i don't see why any other 'cupcations' would care. in my experience as a business owner, we try to help one another even if we are competitors. hope that helps more than it confuses....

how's this for a name: 'wal*mart by ryan'? think i'd get far?

This is the exact reason why there are laws protecting the rights of a company that has a name first. Which reminds me that I need to get the ball rolling on getting my name trademarked. And it is because of this attitude that these law exist.

Let's see, let's all call our business Sprinkles, or Disney. Everyone will be able to tell the difference.

Seriously......

Yes, I probably am overestimating the likelihood of it ever happening, but at the same time, my thinking is theres always a chance it could happen.

An example.. A horrible thing was done to animals at an outdoors business where I live. The news about this ended up going worldwide. The fallout from what happened has had people from all over protesting, boycotting, & threatening.

Whats unfortunate, is other outdoors businesses that have the same name as the offending business, are beginning to suffer. They're now losing customers & being boycotted. Not because they did anything bad to their animals too, its because they have the same name.


People tend to lump this type of thing together. They don't always stop to think that one business might be a completely different business than the one they read about or heard about that did something wrong. Not when the names are the same.

Anyway.. Just my thoughts on identical business names.