Domain name

[Lou-art]

Hello everyone.
I am thinking of registering another name for a site that I want to set up.  It took me a while to think of the name that I first registered, as everything had gone...am I right in thinking, that if you pick a name and someone has a similar name but is not selling or offering the same as you, it's ok to use?
Any advice greatly appreciated.
Lou

[scotserve]

Depends
All domains in the Uk and most of the TLD's are first come first served - however you need to be careful you are not tripping up in anyone's copyright or trademark - additionally selling the same product under a typo or similar name could result in a dispute for "passing off"

If the spelling is very close to someone else of a similar nature or even sounds like you could run into issues where people end up on their site instead of yours or vice versa 

[Lou-art]

Scotserve, thankyou for the quick answer.  What i mean is, for eg, say, I wanted to set up a website selling art and picked the name 'green fields' , there may come up on google search lots of comapanies called that, but none offer, selling art, so, again for example, could I use that name? Not that I will!

[scotserve]

Yes however:

Say you decided to you the name green-fields.com and there was another company with a domain called greenfields.com they cannot stop you registering the domain however if they have a trademark for "Green fields" then they could raise a dispute against you now or in the future just after you have done all your marketing, they could also raise a dispute if they considered you were "passing off" as them
Dont rely on Google as your friend in this case if you are unsure talk it over with a domain registrar and get their views it may be perfectly OK but then again it might not ( obviously this cannot be done with cheap online services where it is register and be damned )

Never ever post a domain in a forum for ideas

[Lou-art]

Don't know how to quote!  'never ever post a domain name in a forum for ideas'. Lol, never would! I have a name, I cannot find anything on google that is associated, where can I check for trademarks?

[scotserve]

Don't know how to quote!  'never ever post a domain name in a forum for ideas'. Lol, never would! I have a name, I cannot find anything on google that is associated, where can I check for trademarks?

Depends on the trademark
feel free to PM me the domain name and I will carry out some due diligence on it for you, I can assure you I do this professionally for people and give you an idea of any possible issues arising.

[Lou-art]

Thanks Scotserve, will pm you