Old, defunct and long ago airline names
Thread Starter
Old, defunct and long ago airline names
Idle curiosity question. If I were to start an airline of my own, would there be any legal or intellectual reason why I couldn't name it, for example, British Eagle or Northeast ? These two companies in particular have been out of business for well over forty years. I don't know if any person or company has any claim on British Eagle but I imagine British Airways owns the rights to the Northeast name, if anyone does. Obviously, I mean the ex-BKS company, not the Delta acquisition.
Thankyou.
Thankyou.
Not entirely sure about the US view of things, but generally companies can have duplicated names. Where it becomes tricky is when those names are used in advertising (or to be misleading).Then comes the Trademark. If the trademark is still held by someone or used by someone, that limits how the name can be used elsewhere. The classic face off was between Apple Records and Apple (Computer) - where Apple (Computer) agreed to never have anything to do with music. Then they came out with the iPod and iTunes and that started a new negotiation; not a happy one at first, but it worked out.
A more recent and, for my money, more ugly arrangement involved a company called Cat & Cloud Coffee, because it's a coffee shop owned by people who also have cats. They decided to sell some merchandise, like hats that had their company name on them. Caterpillar filed an action with USPTO because Caterpillar had the trademark for CAT that Caterpillar associated with, among other things, clothing/apparel. While not suing the small company directly, Caterpillar was going to force them out of selling merchandise and, likely, any other use of the Cat & Cloud Coffee name. It's ugly because the coffee shop isn't a party to the action in the USPTO and so Cat & Cloud Coffee had to submit their own filings to keep Caterpillar from running over them. It started in 2018 and ended in 2020 almost exactly 4 years later.
Fortunately, it has turned out that Caterpillar lost the exclusive use of the word "cat" (if I understand the proceedings result) and Cat & Cloud remains a registered trademark of the coffee shop, but they had to give up on [, socks, underwear, shorts and shoes ] . I suppose this means you can buy and skid-mark CAT trademarked underwear.
Depending on the name and who has money and what is registered, it could be easy-peasy or it could be someone with a pile of money rains on your parade.
Perhaps of interest: https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showf...806:2dnxtz.2.5 (not sure if the link will work; some searches come back with time-stamp and vanish. If so, try https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/gate....glish&p_d=trmk select Basic Word Search and type in Dan Air.) It's no longer active
A more recent and, for my money, more ugly arrangement involved a company called Cat & Cloud Coffee, because it's a coffee shop owned by people who also have cats. They decided to sell some merchandise, like hats that had their company name on them. Caterpillar filed an action with USPTO because Caterpillar had the trademark for CAT that Caterpillar associated with, among other things, clothing/apparel. While not suing the small company directly, Caterpillar was going to force them out of selling merchandise and, likely, any other use of the Cat & Cloud Coffee name. It's ugly because the coffee shop isn't a party to the action in the USPTO and so Cat & Cloud Coffee had to submit their own filings to keep Caterpillar from running over them. It started in 2018 and ended in 2020 almost exactly 4 years later.
Fortunately, it has turned out that Caterpillar lost the exclusive use of the word "cat" (if I understand the proceedings result) and Cat & Cloud remains a registered trademark of the coffee shop, but they had to give up on [, socks, underwear, shorts and shoes ] . I suppose this means you can buy and skid-mark CAT trademarked underwear.
Depending on the name and who has money and what is registered, it could be easy-peasy or it could be someone with a pile of money rains on your parade.
Perhaps of interest: https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showf...806:2dnxtz.2.5 (not sure if the link will work; some searches come back with time-stamp and vanish. If so, try https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/gate....glish&p_d=trmk select Basic Word Search and type in Dan Air.) It's no longer active
Hooter's Air took over the certificate of Pace Airlines out of Winston-Salem North Carolina. Pace was owned by Piedmont Aviation Services, Named in honor of the Pacemakers of Piedmont Airlines. Hooter quickly killed the operation.
A friend of mine attempted to enter the Round the World luxury travel business with a VIP equipped DC-8. He spoke with BA about the use of the Imperial Airways brand and BA agreed in principle. For various other reasons the attempt foundered, which was a great shame.
I long lament the passing of Liberian National Airlines. They used to operate a pair of pristine DC 3s EL-AAB & EL-AAZ during my three year sentence in Liberia 1971-1974. Based at ROB they operated domestic schedules, each day positioning from ROB to Spriggs Payne.
Flown by expat Captains with local FOs, they were always open to free seats on the positioning sectors. Consequently when faced with a shopping trip to Monrovia just had to find who was doing the next morning’s, ring up captain to request a lift and away with my cold box to do the shopping.
Driving by expats in Monrovia could be costly, frequently being pulled over by police to indicate an offence had been committed, which it never had. Became far more frequent when the police hadn’t been paid for a month or two!
Got fed up having to “dash” the police so relied on LNA frequently.
C’est Afrique n’est ce pas?
Shortly after my release I heard that the airline had been nationalised with all local crews. Shortly thereafter EL-AAB was written off while departing from ROB, apparently leaving the side of the runway into the bush apparently due to the rudder gust lock being left in place!
Flown by expat Captains with local FOs, they were always open to free seats on the positioning sectors. Consequently when faced with a shopping trip to Monrovia just had to find who was doing the next morning’s, ring up captain to request a lift and away with my cold box to do the shopping.
Driving by expats in Monrovia could be costly, frequently being pulled over by police to indicate an offence had been committed, which it never had. Became far more frequent when the police hadn’t been paid for a month or two!
Got fed up having to “dash” the police so relied on LNA frequently.
C’est Afrique n’est ce pas?
Shortly after my release I heard that the airline had been nationalised with all local crews. Shortly thereafter EL-AAB was written off while departing from ROB, apparently leaving the side of the runway into the bush apparently due to the rudder gust lock being left in place!
I think it'll be some time before we see this again...........
Amongst great granddads paperwork was a cancelled share certificate for Instone Airways, I always wondered how it came to be in his files as he never had any money and absolute zero interest in aviation.I think it paid out about £100 in 1923 values
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Having been an employee of the original BIA (British Island Airways) I also carried out maintenance later on around 1990 or so on two aging Series 1 HS748s (G-ARRW and G-BEKG) operated by another BIA, British Independent Airways, operating from Lydd to Ireland, it didn't last very long as the aircraft were unserviceable much of the time.
G-ARRW went on to Nepal and G-BEKG became G-DAAL and operated with Emerald for several years after the demise of BIA.
G-ARRW went on to Nepal and G-BEKG became G-DAAL and operated with Emerald for several years after the demise of BIA.
Berlin Regional UK.
https://www.berlin-spotter.de/airlin...ineuropean.htm
https://www.berlin-spotter.de/airlin...ineuropean.htm