February 11, 2008

UnitedHealth Services, a conglomerate offering a range of services within the health care industry, is changing the name of a bank it founded back in 2004.

Exante, a bank that primarily administers health savings accounts, will officially become OptumHealth Bank on March 3, 2008.

UnitedHealth has other business units operating under the ‘Optum’ name. The company has been running a website called ‘OptumAnswers.com’ since 2002, part of what it calls the OptumHealth alliance.

UnitedHealth has federally registered trademarks on file with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office for ‘Optum.’ The trademarks cover five different International Classes:

• IC 016 – Paper goods and printed matter
• IC 035 – Advertising and business services
• IC 042 – Scientific and technological services
• IC 044 – Medical services
• IC 045 – Personal and social services

Note: There are two other companies with registered trademarks for Optum – one for software/computer services, and another for plastics.

UnitedHealth has not yet filed ‘Optum’ for trademark protection under International Class 036 which covers financial services, even though Optum is an FDIC-insured financial institution.

Oddly enough, UnitedHealth does have a trademark registered in IC 036 for Exante.

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Previous related stories from The Financial Brand:

• Ohio bank learns hard lesson about trademark law
• Wauwatosa customers vote for ‘WaterStone’ name
• Customers to have say in new name for Wauwatosa Bank
• Bank changes names to reinforce its category leadership

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