This is always such an exasperating area of the business. I researched this stuff quite a lot way back. There is some good info here.
FAQ - STOP! Read that bit in the middle about "Can I obtain
international patent protection for my invention?" It talks about international protection/limitation.
One is the
Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property which governs 140 participating countries, including the United States. It provides that each member country guarantees to the citizens of the other countries the same rights in patent and trademark matters that it gives to its own citizens. The treaty also provides for the
right of priority in the case of patents, trademarks and industrial designs (design patents). This right means that, on the basis of a regular first application filed in one of the member countries, the applicant may, within a certain period of time, apply for protection in all the other member countries. These later applications will then be regarded as if they had been filed on the same day as the first application. Thus, these later applicants will have priority over applications for the same invention that may have been filed during the same period of time by other persons.
The wording in so confusing.
What the patent office is most interested in is: Will a customer confuse a company name with another company.
You can have "Bill Jones Cookies" and "Bill Jones Welding" because no customer would ever confuse welding with cookies (unless I'm baking).
You can't use "Bill Jones" if Bill Jones is famous or is famous and died recently.
The problem I ran into is, I'm not sure if my name would fly or not but you are supposed to start using the name and then register (at least that's how it is in Canada-they want to know when you first used it). But by the time the filing process is complete (give or take 2 years from now), they might have decided you can't use it. That means you shouldn't use your name until you get it safely through? Ughh.
Eventually I decided, what the hell - I don't want to get too hung up on it - it stalls me moving ahead.
Does everyone find it difficult to come up with a unique name that even remotely would make it through the trademark system? It seems like everything you think of is already in there (or close enough to it). It's such a pain in the butt !!
In your case, if I were you, I'd go ahead with it. There would no confusion that I could see. But it may depend on what type of movies. Like, what if the movie company was called "Tribeca Animal Documentaries" and you want to be "Tribeca Animal T-shirts". That could be potentially a problem area. But that would also depend upon the USPTO extending protection to France, which I'm not sure about.
I'm not paying a lawyer either so I just wing it.
am I ok 
Re: am I ok 
