So confusion has been engedered

[Tony Brooks]

Just out of interest is seems that the potential confusion of customers feared in a previous thread is happening. That thread and a post in another place has shown the initials ABC are being used to identify two totally different boat companies of which ABC is not their full trading names. Just gos to show how important it is to keep ones ear to the ground.

 

PS - only an observation, we do not want to open up the last thread again.

Edited December 2, 2010 by Tony Brooks

[Speedwheel]

ABC Leisure's lawyers will no doubt already be on the case. I'm sure they do not want others damaging either their reputation or profiting from it.

Edited December 2, 2010 by Speedwheel

[David Schweizer]

ABC Leisure's lawyers will no doubt already be on the case. I'm sure they do not want others damaging either their reputation or profiting from it.

Unless they have ABC registered as a trade name or logo, they cannot do anything about it, except hurridly register it of course.

 

Many years ago I tried to arbitrate on a similar problem between two Natiomnal Voluntary Youth Organizations using the same logo. The Young Farmers Clubs had been using the Logo "YFC" for more than fifty years, when a new organization called Youth for Christ started to use the same initials. Despite the history the new organization refused to co-operate, however, neither organiztion registered the logo and today they both still use YFC as their logo. I often wonder which one do people automaticaly think of when they see something like Shrewsbury YFC.

 

Another more interestig success was when the the department of the Environmentwas created, it had to adopt the logo "DOE" instead of "D of E" because the Duke of Edinburgh's Award had already registered the logo.

[ditchcrawler]

Didn't Posh Spice try to stop Peterborough football club calling themselves Posh, even though they had been doing it since before she was born

[Athy]

I think I saw an advert for ABC boatbuilding. So this is not a division of ABC who used to be Alvechurch?

Incidentally, I think Alvechurch is a far better name; why did they change it?

[WJM]

Initials and logos are different things. Logos are graphics, a piece of artwork.

 

Famously, Quark Software and the Scottish Arts Council managed to come up with the same logo a few years ago!

[RLWP]

<snip>

 

Many years ago I tried to arbitrate on a similar problem between two Natiomnal Voluntary Youth Organizations using the same logo. The Young Farmers Clubs had been using the Logo "YFC" for more than fifty years, when a new organization called Youth for Christ started to use the same initials. Despite the history the new organization refused to co-operate, however, neither organiztion registered the logo and today they both still use YFC as their logo. I often wonder which one do people automaticaly think of when they see something like Shrewsbury YFC.

<snip>

 

Shrewsbury Young Farmers Club

 

Richard

 

(ex-chairman Kenilworth Young Farmers Club)

[Speedwheel]

Shrewsbury Young Farmers Club

 

Indeed.

 

Mark (ex member of the aformentioned club)

 

I think Alvechurch is a far better name; why did they change it?

 

A.B.C.

 

Alvechurch

Boat

Centres

Edited December 2, 2010 by Speedwheel

[David Schweizer]

Initials and logos are different things. Logos are graphics, a piece of artwork.

 

Famously, Quark Software and the Scottish Arts Council managed to come up with the same logo a few years ago!

 

National Young Farmers Clubs

 

 

Bath Youth for Christ

 

 

 

They both look like Logos to me, not just initials

Edited December 2, 2010 by David Schweizer

[carlt]

WWF.

 

I understand that, though they were under no obligation to, The World Wrestling Federation changed it's initials to WWE, so as not to undermine the Worldwide Fund For Nature (even though they had already dumped "World Wildlife Fund" so rendering WWF pretty meaningless).

 

I have no idea what the "E" stands for, in "WWE".

[Teadaemon]

WWF.

 

I understand that, though they were under no obligation to, The World Wrestling Federation changed it's initials to WWE, so as not to undermine the Worldwide Fund For Nature (even though they had already dumped "World Wildlife Fund" so rendering WWF pretty meaningless).

 

I have no idea what the "E" stands for, in "WWE".

 

The 'E' stands for 'Entertainment', as apparently they don't do wrestling, they're a 'Sports Entertainment' company (which is another way of saying that the storylines are more important than the wrestling - personally I prefer wrestling, so these days tend to watch TNA (Total Nonstop Action, before you ask) or Ring of Honor). As far as I'm aware, they did eventually lose the court case brought by the other WWF, who were around long before Vince McMahon renamed the WWWF (World Wide Wrestling Federation) in 1984.

 

Have I just outed myself as a bit of a wrestling geek?

[RLWP]

National Young Farmers Clubs

<snip>

 

National Federation of Young Farmer's Clubs

 

Richard

Edited December 2, 2010 by RLWP

[Tacet]

The chances of two parties happening upon the same three letter acronym are surprisingly high; by the time there are 157 TLAs in use a coincidence becomes more probable than not.

 

Assuming my maths is right (a big assumption) there are 17,576 possible combinations although some letters/combinations are doubtless more regularly used. Even so, the above is based on the less favourable, random selection,

 

The chances that they are in the same line of business is harder to calculate. One the one hand, there are less people to bump into, but some letters are likely to be common e.g. B for boat or Y for youth. Therefore unless it is very much a case of in-your-face confusion, reluctance to change the TLA is understandable as it is quite difficult to avoid.

[David Schweizer]

National Federation of Young Farmer's Clubs

 

Richard

Yes of course I knew that, but as I was drawing attention to the "YFC" element, I ommited the Federation bit.

 

In past years, I served as an Adult Advisor on both the Somerset and Gloucestershire Excecutives, and attended many of their rallies. I also have a small collection of early YFC booklets on farming teqchniques dating back to the 1940's. Interestingly, the logo inn those days was a roundel with a horse pulling a plough against an Art Deco sunburst.

Edited December 3, 2010 by David Schweizer