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The outcome from these things varies widely. There is a link, which I have lost, which gives recent rulings regarding exactly the sort of thing you're talking about. They go both ways, but seem mainly fair to an uninitiated person such as I am. One, for instance, gave McDonalds the right to one some guy had called JesusMcDonalds or something like that. All they wanted to do was suppress the name, and they won. In another case a guy in England had registered a name with which to provide game results for some big European soccer contest. He did NOT use the initials of the sponsoring agency, but the name definitely invoked their image because it was a commonly used acronym with 2005 appended. The ruling was that since his providing of the results would not commercially damage the organization in any way, and since they didn't bother to register it for themselves, he was fully within his rights and was allowed to keep the name. It was a very interesting document and I believe you may be able to find it via Google or by checking the links one finds on a registrar's site.
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