How can I fight the refusals for the trademark on my brand?

In the US, terms and conditions do not override the law of the land. Depending on the exact situation, and intent, I would suspect that an entity could make the case for fraud, trademark infringement, theft, or copyright violation. The practice will likely get you blacklisted by any search engine of significances, undercutting whatever your objective was in the first place.

I have been working as a Business Entrepreneur and have been working with many of the customers from Europe, North America. While creating a White Label solution, the most important part for the owner is to manage the security for the product as well manage the Quality to be delivered within the expected timeline and budget. While choosing a company, the NDA's would work but with them you can also sign a Proposal, SLA(Service Level Agreement) which helps to bind the contract and source code as your own property. As when it comes to offshore development, my suggestions is to choose a company which has been doing this services since more than 5 years now and have been a part of good success stories whose stories are kept confidential. So with the documents, a formal trust would help you create the platform as your own property with the expected quality. You can consult your Legal adviser in the matter and hope they would align the strategy.

Your first point of reference should be experience. The most effective way to create your ToS is to consult with a lawyer who specializes in your industry. This also hold true for your that and any business legal document. It’s true that you can find different online services and templates to assist you, but the truth is that these documents could very well be null and void. Your business is specific and unique and your ToS should be the same way. I advise against copying your ToS or using one of the “easy to use” sites as they will almost certainly fail to include or capture everything. Read more: https://lawtrades.com/blog/protect-website-liability/ At www.lawtrades.com, we have plenty of experienced Terms of Service and Privacy policy lawyers who will complete it for you on-demand. I have seen PP and TOS prepared routinely for $599 or less, and these documents essentially serve as a “blueprint” for your business. (Full disclosure: I'm the founder/CEO). In my opinion, copying your competitors legal documents will not work for you in the long run. The odds are high that the business had their documents customized, and by copying and pasting you are claiming that your business has the same features and services which is highly unlikely. Hope this helped address some of your concerns. When you're ready, you make your request completely free at www.lawtrades.com to get a better feel for the process. Feel free to mention "clarity" for a discount :)

This is a tricky question as you are entering a gray area if you are using material from Book Z to inspire your own book. Derivatives works are highly litigated and there is case law that you could turn to to help you make this decision but based on your example its going to be a fine line. You would have to be able to distinguish the products as two very separate works. Since the original book Z is inspiring your new book this may be hard to do. It might actually be easier to talk with the original author about your future plans and develop an agreement between the two of you where he waives any claims he might have here in exchange for recognition in your book. Just an idea--FYI- this is NOT LEGAL ADVICE. You should consult with an attorney in more detail here.

Ries owns 'Lean Startup' trademark. I doubt 'lean' by itself is trademark-able, and isn't claimed by Eric. Someone else may claim 'lean career development,' so might be worth a trademark search.