No, but it may be possible to protect such names under trademark law, another area of intellectual property law. Federal law recognizes trademarks as “any word, name, symbol or device or combination therof, adopted and used by a manufacturer or merchant to identify its goods and distinguish them.”[15] Some phrases and names can be trademarked,[16] but generic terms cannot. For example, an Internet service provider may not trademark “buddy list” because it is an everyday term.
You should be aware that the fact that a phrase is a registered trademark does not mean it cannot be used by the media. For example, you can write a story about Starbucks. What you can’t do is open coffee shops called Starbucks.
For more on trademark, including a database of registrations, go to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office site at http://www.uspto.gov.
[15] 15 U.S.C. § 1121.
[16] See, e.g., Carson v. Here’s Johnny Portable Toilets, 698 F.2d. 831 (6th Cir. 1983).
