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You likely need to do a trademark search, and see if the title is trademarked. Go to The USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office). Select "Basic Word Mark Search", the first option in t...
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#4: Attribution notice removed
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/46550 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/46550 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
You likely need to do a trademark search, and see if the title is trademarked. Go to [The USPTO](http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=tess&state=4806:8p2thm.1.1) (United States Patent and Trademark Office). Select "Basic Word Mark Search", the first option in the list. For the Search Term, put in your title: For example, "Dead Like Me" (without the quotes). This is the name of a sci-fi show. You will find it WAS trademarked, the filing date was April 11, 2002, it was registered on March 30, 2004, the Owner (Registrant) was MGM Television. But then the Live/Dead Indicator at the bottom indicates it is DEAD, and the Cancellation Date is October 31, 2014. So you can use it! Any Trademark that is LIVE you shouldn't use; the words belong to somebody else, and the somebody else can sue you. Typically only unusual combinations of words as titles can be trademarked, but it doesn't hurt to check.