The legal department of a company I work for is telling me I can’t use the name Mare Crisium in something because there’s apparently a video game company named Mare Crisium. The thing I wrote takes place on the moon, and the Mare Crisium is a real name of a ‘sea’ on the moon. Could a company really sue for copyright infringement of a name they didn’t invent in the first place? Is there such a thing as public domain on stuff like this? They also won’t let me use the names Surgiva and Ajax for similar reasons, even though both of these are names of Gods that are thousands of years old.
I know the legal department is just being cautious (paranoid) because that’s what legal departments are for, and I’m certainly not going to change their minds, but I’m curious what the laws are in situations like this. I mean, hasn’t every name been used by some company at some point?
You’ll have to be more specific; some uses are protected by the copyright and others are not. For example, if you’re just talking about the Mare Crisium that’s on the moon, and it’s in a written work that has nothing to do with video games, software, or computers, you’re probably safe. If the above is not true, you may have a problem.
Similarly, if you are actually discussing the god (?) Surgiva or (definitely not a god) Ajax, and your use does not in any way involve or reflect on the companies, their businesses, their products, or a similar usage, you’re probably safe.
very few copyrights are for brand-new words; most things are named after someone or something else, and most names are shared.
This is a trademark issue, not copyright. A word or term does not have to be invented to have trademark protection. See the INTA Trademark Checklist for about a zillion examples. You may also find the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Web site handy.
IANATL. However:
(on preview) Substituting “trademark” for “copyright,” I see that Nametag has pretty much said what I had to say, and much more succinctly, too.