copyright intellectual-property international
Naming a product using the first letter of a persons name?
<p>I was thinking about naming our products using the first letter in a cause or person that we'd like to bring attention to.  For our first product I was thinking FS R, with the last letter being the first letter in the name Razia Jan.  I'd choose her based on her humanitarian efforts in Afghanistan.  </p>

<p>Do we run into any copyright or other legal issues for linking the product name to something like this that promotes global awareness?</p>

<p>Do you have permission of the person?</p>

<p>In general, product names fall under trademark law, not copyright. And while it's possible to use the name of a non-employee as a trademark, doing so without the permission of that person is rather dangerous. That person may sue you for a number of different reasons, with different demands - chiefly financial compensation or a rename of your product.</p>

<p>Many products and organizations are named using initials, often the initials of an owner or founder, or of a former business name. I recently hired an exterminator which game its name simply as "RPC" but their literature indicated this stood for 'Ron's Pest Control". The company IBM was once International Business machines, and 3M was once Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing. </p>

<p>One risk is that in using a TLA (three letter abbreviation) you are not likely to be unique, and may be confused with very different products or firms with the same initials. But that is mostly a business risk, not a legal risk. If another firm has trademarked the initials you want, that might be a problem. But you can't copyright a short phrase such as a title, much less a three or four-letter designation. For Example "APL" is both the name of a shipping company (American President's Line) and a programming tool (A Programming Language). Most such letter designations have multiple meanings already assigned.</p>
