I am about to publish a game on the android playstore and the ios appstore. It is called "PairIt". I checked a while back to see if there were any other apps named PairIt on the playstore, and there were none. But I did not check on the appstore. Yesterday, when I tried publishing my app onto the appstore, it said the name was taken. After looking around on the appstore I saw someone else had an app named PairIt. So what I did was changed my app name to "PairIt!". Will this work? Could I get into any legal troubles for this?
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1\$\begingroup\$ Note that even if it's legal, you'll have trouble market your game and have a unique signature... that might not be good for you. \$\endgroup\$ – Vaillancourt♦ Jun 21 '16 at 0:11
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\$\begingroup\$ @AlexandreVaillancourt I downloaded their app, and the app is very different from my app. Also it has no reviews, so it must not have very many downloads. \$\endgroup\$ – neel11 Jun 21 '16 at 0:19
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Names can be trademarked. If "PairIt" is already used or registered as a trademark by somebody else, then yes, it is possible you can get into legal trouble if they decide to defend that trademark.
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\$\begingroup\$ I read somewhere, they "have to" defend their trademark. Otherwise they may just loose it (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark). \$\endgroup\$ – Kromster Jun 21 '16 at 5:17
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\$\begingroup\$ @Kromster They do. But they also have to know about your infringement before they can actively defend against it, and lots of small-scale cases can easily go unnoticed. \$\endgroup\$ – user1430 Jun 21 '16 at 15:12
