And another “you can’t use that business name!” conflict

A sort of addendum to the Chanel (Jones) Salon story, about selecting business names and maybe getting sued, from today’s Publisher’s Lunch:

In Settlement, Foreword Literary Changes Name to Fuse

Foreword Literary agency announced that they are changing their name to Fuse Literary, under an out-of-court settlement with Foreword Magazine. Founded in 2013, the agency will continue to operate as before. Founding partner Laurie McLean says in a statement: “The owners of Fore Word Magazine, Inc. felt that people in publishing would be confused by the similar sounding names of our literary agency and their quarterly review magazine. We vehemently disagreed, but a lengthy court battle was untenable in terms of time and money wasted, so we decided to change our name.”

McLean adds that the new name “embodies our new tagline, ‘Igniting Author Careers’ as well as the other meaning of fuse: bonding two or more things into a stronger whole. We feel stronger and are excited about continuing to explore the fusion possibilities of hybrid authors.” Their digital-first publishing line Fast Foreword will be renamed Short Fuse.

Separately, Foreword Magazine founder Victoria Sutherland tells us, “We trademarked our name when we went into business 17 years ago. Copyright protection is important for small businesses, and this is a good illustration why. We are happy they responded positively to a suggestion they change the name of their relatively new business to alleviate any confusion in the marketplace.”

Actually I prefer Fuse Literary. It’s got a lot of punch. Not that anybody asked me…

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