wow, Walgreen's came first didn't it? Maybe back then old Sam had a partner named Green.

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As for copyrights, General and Electric are two common words. Does this mean the company's name is not copyrighted? Or was it created before this law?

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And finally, just to annoy Geoff , here's a great example of a corporate name that does nothing to convey what it does and causes problems when you try to look up its website. BellSouth wireless and Verizon (!) wireless merged to form a company called Cingular (cf. seltic). Go figger.