body: When are names trade marked? Say I'm part of a sports team called "Big Ball Chasers" and it wasn't me who named the team that. If I latter decide to
  
  
  1. call my dog the same name
  2. join another sports team and encourage them to go by that name
  3. create my own sports team with the same name
  
  
  would any of these be in violation of trademark?
  
  
  I've heard companies and products sometimes change their name as there was already an existing one with the same. When situations like this arize, do things normally not go immediatley to court but the parties work it out between themselves? For example (IIRC) the computer language Java used to be called Oak but there already existed a language with the same name so Oak changed there's to Java (but didn't get sued). 
  
  
  
title: When are names trade-marked?