Does employer own name?

[jmm2506]

About two years ago, two of my colleagues designed a database web application for a company purpose. Subsequently they had the company applications developer build it and about a year ago a department was created around it (the department was given a different name than the application).

Our employer has just announced that they are closing our office soon and my colleagues and I want to start our own company using our knowledge in the industry. We will create our own application based on the ideas behind the one designed two years ago, but much more expanded.

The application has a unique name given to it by its creators, my colleagues, and we would like to use the name as our new company name. However, since the current application was created for our current employer, does our employer have any rights which would prevent us from using the name for our new company?

Thanks for your help.

If you were an employee the employer owns all rights. You need their permission to use any of the work created for them. But you can go into a competing business, you just cannot use their work product, trade secrets and the like.