Hello-Portugal becomes Hey Portugal !
The main thing is obviously the new name..let us explain why?
You, our readers, are no longer free to use the word Hello!
Hello! Magazine has raised trademark objections to our name.
We were surprised to find that in the closing minutes of our 2 month long Trademark registration campaign that Hello! Magazine obviously got very worried about us and sent 2 separate objections (one 39 pages long!) against the Trademark Name of HelloPortugal. They believe their 2 million readers of their weekly, celebrity focused magazine would get the two names confused!!! … I suppose with hindsight it is possible to see how their readers might! We did do our homework and knew that HelloPortugal readers would certainly not get mixed up with Hello!, especially in Portugal where their magazine is only distributed in Spanish and called Hola!’
We did some research and found that Hello Magazine actually object to anyone trying to use the word Hello in their trademark, worldwide! Even when used for clothing, stationery or perfumes (just to give some examples of objections they have made). It seems that Hello Magazine believe that they have the exclusive right to the word Hello..oh! silly us, we thought it was just another English word in everyday use.
Hello Magazine’s objections are to HelloPortugal using the word ‘Hello’ in the title, and using our website www.hello-portugal.com. They have even gone so far as to tell us that we are not permitted to use an exclamation mark with the word hello e.g. Hello! Not that we had, but apart from seemingly owning the word Hello, they also own the exclamation mark!’
It takes about 4-5 years to successfully overturn a trademark objection... but we have much more important things to be getting along with, so we are not going to bother!’
So on that note, and to those more important things ...“Hey Portugal”, is the new name for HelloPortgual. Keep an eye out for our new Portugal Magazine and don't say Hello...say Hey!