Company challenges Facebook on its trademark for “Facebook”.
Facebook has been aggressively going after businesses with “book” in their name, including challenging a trademark by phone app company Talkbook.
But Talkbook is fighting back.
The company responded by filing its own challenge against the social network for what it calls “fraudulent”
claims to get the Facebook trademark. Facebook originally filed for “The Facebook” before filing an amendment dropping “The”. Talkbook disputes some of Facebook’s claims both on the original trademark application and when it filed to drop “the”.
Talkbook also dispute’s Facebook’s claims on its “first use in commerce” for some categories, including when it started offering video sharing on its site.
You can read Talkbook’s claims here (pdf).
Good for them! “Facebook” is a generic word that has been in use long before Facebook.com was around. Facebook.com is really just an expanded online version of what a college or university facebook used to be. I can see ‘Facebook.com’ being trademarked, and maybe some of their online applications, but to prevent other sites from using ‘book’ or ‘facebook’ isn’t right.
Facebook.com is about as legit of a TM as yearbook.com I love it when brands think they are being clever by actively defending a mark they never even conceived in the first place.