Can a company ask a user on an internet forum to change their username for copyright purposes?

[ifaistos]

I run a website with users who chose their usernames. We've received a letter from a company telling us that they've noticed one of our users has the same username as their brand name. The letter says the company is not giving us permission to use this username, therefore can we ask our user to change it. The user uses this username on various sites and it's part of his online identity so I don't want to force him to change unless I have to.

The company and our website are in completely different sectors - theirs is a web-design and IT company and our site is for users to share recipes. I don't believe it's misleading or confusing for our user to have this particular username. However I checked the patents database where the company has registered their brand name and they've listed at least 50 different sectors for their activity - cooking could be among them, I haven't gone through it carefully yet.

Could anyone advise me as to what my obligations are here? Thanks.

I think you can call yourself whatever you like -the user is not a "product" presumably. Not sure about the law but commenting from a common sense point of view.

I can't see how they could force someone to stop having a user name that's the same as their company name... it will be interesting to see what the legal bods say though.

It does sound very petty.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that thinks it's petty. I suppose they're annoyed because when you type the name into google, our user's profile page appears in the results. However, their company also appears (above us, currently), and I don't think anyone's going to get confused between a chef and an IT company.

I think you need to be very careful about this and probably pay for a small amount of patent law legal advice. Companies are now successfully sue for use of their names in second life.

I doubt their request is enforcable as the user is (presumably) not trying to pass themself off as linked to that company, trying to sell a similar product or trying to damage the brand in any way?

What nocake said.

Agree with nocake and mumblechum. In light of recent decisions, I believe any legal action taken by the company would have to be against the user rather than against you. Indeed, if they threaten you over trademark infringement you may be able to sue them for making unjustified threats!

Yes, the user is in no way trying to pass themselves off as the IT company. I think I said in the OP that the company had registered the patent. This is probably the wrong term, what I probably mean is trademark, right?

Yes, you do mean trademark.