The Centre of Registers no longer checks company names against trademarks

On January 30, the State Enterprise Centre of Registers announced that it is no longer responsible for checking whether a legal entity’s name is identical or confusingly similar to registered Lithuanian, European Union, or international trademarks whose protection is extended to Lithuania. From now on, a company name may be registered even if it is identical or misleadingly similar to an existing trademark.

It is important to understand that this does not mean that identical company names can now be freely registered without consequences where an existing trademark is involved.

Until now, the Centre of Registers would flag obvious conflicts and refuse to issue a certificate confirming the temporary inclusion of a company name in the Register of Legal Entities. This preventive mechanism helped to stop some potential disputes at an early stage. With this function removed, the greatest risk will fall on founders who are unaware that the Centre of Registers no longer assesses trademark conflict risks when registering a company name.

Trademark disputes most often arise not due to intentional copying, but because of similarities in business activities, overlapping markets, and consumer confusion. Such disputes typically emerge when a business is already actively operating and the owner of an identical or similar trademark notices unlawful competitive use.

Paradoxically, from an intellectual property perspective, this change also has a positive side. In the past, the Centre of Registers sometimes blocked company names solely due to a formal similarity with a trademark, without assessing whether the businesses could realistically compete. From a legal standpoint, identical trademarks may coexist if the fields of business activity are sufficiently different.

As a result, the current situation is ambiguous. It benefits those who choose a company name consciously and carry out preventive checks in advance. In such cases, the registration process becomes more flexible and more aligned with trademark law principles.

In practice, this means taking several simple but often overlooked steps (links provided in the comments):

• checking whether the name is already taken in the Register of Legal Entities and reserved name searches;

• verifying trademarks in Lithuania and the EU by searching the Lithuanian trademark database, the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) database, and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) database (with “Designation” set to LT);

• assessing whether the name could mislead the market;

• checking whether the name is practically usable (e.g. domain availability), including whether a corresponding .lt domain is already registered.

We have written about this before (https://lnkd.in/dEU8UA_g). In practice, we often see that failing to conduct a thorough name clearance check at the incorporation stage can later cost significantly more in a dispute than preventive actions taken before registration.