Re: BMW threatens minicooperonline.com, please help us! sign petition

Good question. I'm only speaking of what I know of US law. And I am not a lawyer.

But not to refer to a particular line of cars produced by a particular manufacturer. There's nothing new about using existing words as a trademark. No conflict results: the protection of trade names doesn't extend to all areas of life.

A lot depends on a lot of things, which I can't address precisely enough so I won't. But, for example, "McDonalds" has asserted, and won, protection for "Mc" in certain contexts, and Toys R Us has won cases against those who have used the "X R Us" theme, whether with a forwards or backwards R.