Spanish trademark question

I am a maintainer for one of two related mailing lists that focus on the music of a recording artist. One of the list's members, from Spain, has presented us with a question/problem that we cannot answer and could also have implications for our lists.

The name of his non-commercial website is the same as a Spanish folk group. He received a letter from the folk group indicating that he cannot use that name because it is a registered trademark. They are also emailing owners of websites who link to his site, stating that 1) they are linking to an illegal website, 2) the name is a registered trademark, and 3) the owner (our subscriber) isn't authorized to use it. They then suggest that the link should be removed and replaced by a link to the group's official website (also in Spanish).

Neither his site, nor the sites linking to our list members' site, has anything to do with the folk group. The name our member uses on his website is a gaelic word used in some form by many people: as a surname; there is a song by that name; it's even part of the scientific name of a bird.

This has led to questions about what names can and cannot be registered as trademarks, particularly with regard to Spain.

Our two lists are maintained in Canada and the US, and the same situation could come up for us eventually. Our names derive from titles of the musician's albums (he is aware of our lists, and we're the so-called "official" lists, whatever that really means!), and there actually is a group by the name of one. I suspect both the album and our mailing list pre-date the group. So far, we've never heard from the group.

Thanks for any suggestions for our Spanish member, and for us! Feel free to respond off-list.

Mary-Carol Lindbloom
mlindblm[_at_]darkstar.rsa.lib.il.us Received on Sat Aug 05 2000 - 18:07:16 GMT