When you are starting a new business or re-branding a current business, you need to choose a great name.
Your first port of call is a name availability search with ASIC, to check that no-one has registered the name already.
This is what the people behind Henley Constructions did for their new home unit development company.Trouble was, that's all they did.
Lurking in the background was a different company, Henley Properties Group, which took Henley Constructions to Court where Justice Anderson decided that the names were deceptively similar.
As The Henley Properties Group had registered their name as a trade mark (in addition to registration with ASIC), the Court ordered Henley Constructions stop using its name. It will be an expensive re-brand! - see photos of their development in Victoria Road, Drummoyne.
What Henley Constructions should have done was check on Google, check the domain name registry and the trade mark registry before assuming they had the right to use the name, not just the right to register the name.
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