I wouldn't bother asking for permission unless you're willing to send them large sums of money, nobody is going to give you their trademark for free (and I doubt they'd consent for any amount less than thousands and thousands of dollars).

If your company is a real company with a strong reputation that you want to protect I'd consult your lawyer.

If your company has only one employee, little to no revenue, runs out of your basement, and nobody has ever heard of it, then I'd just change the name.

Another thing to consider, if you keep your name as 'bullet time games' (or similar), you've probably got no chance of ever making it into the top 10 pages of anybody's search result, which will be unfortunate for you.

Try to figure out what the developers of Max Payne did.

Quote:Original post by JMTHEFOX
I just found out that the term "bullet time" is trademarked by Warner Bros.

For what? A movie or a cartoon?
What does your lawyer say?
If you don't have a lawyer: How much reading have you done on trademark law?

In theory, you could have APPLE being a trademark of computers, APPLE being a book, or a new soda drink. In theory...