ISIS, a terrorist organization wreaking havoc in the Middle East, is unexpectedly hurting companies all over the world. It turns out that, ‘ISIS,’ is a relatively common name or acronym and, not surprisingly, it belongs to more than just the terrorist group.

The name ISIS belongs to an app, as well, and they are changing their name to avoid confusion.

According to this article, “‘Isis’ is part of more than 270 product, service or business names among active federal trademarks, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.” However, there are many more people being affected seeing as though companies do not need to register their names. People are actually returning and avoiding items with the name, “ISIS,” solely because of the association with the terrorist group. It’s interesting how something as simple as a coincidental name can bring such a negative impact onto businesses. In fact, some businesses are changing their names to avoid being associated with the terrorist organization, including the University of British Columbia. The ISIS Research Centre in our own business school has the misfortune of sharing the name with the other ISIS. According to this news article, UBC is dropping the name of it’s research centre because of the negative reputation it holds.

The ISIS Research Centre of UBC is located within the Sauder School of Business