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It would be a Trademark claim by the USPTO, I assume by gregmorrissey

Not the individual Secretaries of State. As for the Pac 10 name, it would be interesting. The Catholic schools of the Big East sued and won the right to retain the trademark rights for the Big East name.


As for SMAP Financial Services, you have an obligation to defend the trademark as well. For example, if you are SMAP Financial Services, LLC, then I assume that the Secretary of State will not reject a filing for a corporation named SMAP Financial Services, Inc. But, if you have filed and been awarded a trademark from the USPTO then you could sue them to enforce your trademark rights and have them change their name. But, this only applies to the same or closely related industries. If SMAP Financial Services, Inc. is actually a t-shirt company then they would probably win the trademark case and be able to keep operating under that name (as nonsensical as that name would be for a t-shirt company).