[jimhefferon]

Non-sarcastic question: suppose I trademark my name and then someone with my name opens an account on a web site, or a resturant, or writes a script. Are they in violation? (It is strange to me that, say, Twitter is a worldwide namespace. We had a resturant in our East Coast US town that had to change its totally-boring name because they were threatened by a West Coast resturant with that name.)

[kube-system]

Trademarks are narrow in scope to a particular line of business. If you trademark a restaurant named "Jim's", that means other people cannot open other restaurants named "Jim's", but they could open any other kind of business under the same name.

[kortilla]

It’s even stricter than that. Getting a trademark on something as simple as “Jim’s” for a restaurant is near impossible because there are already thousands of restaurants and bars that use that name.

[kube-system]

We're saying the same thing. Just swap "you" and "other people" in my comment. The law works the same for everyone.

[kortilla]

No, we’re not. I’m pointing out that you can’t even trademark common names even in the scope of a narrow business. You wouldn’t be able to trademark “Jim’s restaurant” at all.