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  • Hi there I’m looking for advise on trademarks for my business.am looking at launching into the cannabis industry and wondering about branding and marketing trademarks for a business that has a similar name overseas.the brand name is ‘Lewcid’ whilst there is an existing company called lucid cannabis in Canada. While the trademark will likely be fine in nz I’m looking for advice for overseas markets if we tried to expand to countries where the Canadian company has also expanded to. I realise that while they are spelt differently there is a soundalike attribute to the names.are you able to advise on this and whether adding something like NZ to the brand is enough to differentiate overseas.thanks

Question :
Hi there I’m looking for advise on trademarks for my business.am looking at launching into the cannabis industry and wondering about branding and marketing trademarks for a business that has a similar name overseas.the brand name is ‘Lewcid’ whilst there is an existing company called lucid cannabis in Canada. While the trademark will likely be fine in nz I’m looking for advice for overseas markets if we tried to expand to countries where the Canadian company has also expanded to. I realise that while they are spelt differently there is a soundalike attribute to the names.are you able to advise on this and whether adding something like NZ to the brand is enough to differentiate overseas.thanks

Question submitted 10/10/20 @ 06:58am
Industry: Legal
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    Hi @marclewis

    Just asked my colleague who is a trade marks expert (Jason Rudkin-Binks). He said this:

    Trade marks cannot be similar to other trade marks – that rule is generally applicable in all countries. Similarity is gauged phonetically, conceptually and visually – lucid and lewcid are phonetically identical and so too similar to each other – adding NZ will not help as it just sounds like you are the New Zealand arm of the business – if you used it you couldn’t expand to any country where the Canadian company had traded first. I’d choose something different.

    Feel free to contact him at jason.rudkin-binks@hgmlegal.com

    Cheers
    Ed

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    Hi there

    Thank you so much for the quick and detailed reply.
    Will be sure to recommend the service to others.

    Ngā mini
    Marc

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