Facebook Trademark Lawsuit Aims To Limit Use Of 'Book' By Others

Mashable:

Facebook has filed suit against Teachbook.com, an online community for teachers. The lawsuit accuses Teachbook of "misappropriating the distinctive BOOK portion of Facebook's trademark."

Read the whole story: Mashable

Comments

[sense oar sheep]

11:00 PM on 08/29/2010

quickbook (intuit) should sue

[anothervoter]

07:09 PM on 08/28/2010

I do believe Monster Cable has done the same thing with the word "monster."

Nice if you can get away with it.

[useyourbrain]

11:39 PM on 08/27/2010

A great way to balance the budget for every State and the US government. Licensing rights to words payable each year. Just think who would have to pay billions to keep their franchise or branding rights:

Rush (anyone wanting to indicate it would have to use "hurry")
Micro (microbes, microphone,
Apple (apple pie, apples & oranges, Appalachia, etc.)
People (magazine, people, peopled, etc.)
News (newsweek, evening news, morning news, etc.)
Week (newsweek)
Time (I don't even know where to begin on that one)
Journal (Wall Street Journal + almost every frickin' small town paper in the US)
Face (facebook, facing page, the face of a building, face)

Gee, this is fun, it could be a game. Add your own. Make this viral around the world. Words to copyright. If a corporation can copyright the human genome because they "discovered" it (but they didn't create it), then why not copyright every word?

[Tyrione]

01:35 PM on 08/26/2010

They will lose this lawsuit. This one will be a laugher for the legal system. Facebook is worried about their brand being trivialized ala Microsoft Windows who sued Lindows [Linux Windows].

This suit should eventually get tossed.

[LightShadow62]

01:07 PM on 08/26/2010

If Facebook can prove that they invented the word 'book' then the can sue all they want otherwise Zuckerburg can shove it where the sun don't shine.

[Tyrione]

01:33 PM on 08/26/2010

That will never happen.

[LightShadow62]

01:51 PM on 08/26/2010

I know that. Facebook is following the Apple business model of suing everybody even on the most ludicrous issues.

[matt819]

12:16 PM on 08/26/2010

Song lyric: Tell me who wrote the BLANK of love?
Groups: BLANK of the Month Club, Weekly BLANK Club
Recipe Thingamajiggies: The Barefoot Contessa CookBLANK
Stores: Borders BLANK, WaldenBLANKS (is that even still around?)
Publications: The New York Times BLANK Review, New York Review of BLANKS
Shopping on Amazon: BLANKS
Or on Audible: AudioBLANKS

While they're at it, why not protect the word face. There's no telling how much they can make on litigating that one.

[FBuchan]

02:02 PM on 08/26/2010

What about phone BOOK, which actually was one of the original directories for looking people up. Maybe the folks behind the phone book should sue Facebook for misappropriating the concept.

[RGKahn]

11:25 AM on 08/27/2010

They are trying to trademark face as well. And not just in connection with the word book. They think that their use of facebook trumps any and all use of blankface or faceblank or blankbook or bookblank and every variation in between. I guess that include variations that existed before facebook will also violate their trademark as well.

[IfIonlyknew]

11:54 AM on 08/26/2010

I hope zuckerburg loses 84% of his comp. to Paul Ceglia.

[Lena F Kendall]

11:53 AM on 08/26/2010

so what am I supposed to call all those things on my shelf? prehistoric kindles? ffs, you cant trademark BOOK!!! dude bumped his head,

[emmeaki]

11:32 PM on 08/26/2010

Prehistoric Kindles--I like that one!

[bubbuh]

11:51 AM on 08/26/2010

Well, book facebook until they bleed.

[Claw2122]

11:47 AM on 08/26/2010

book book book book book book book

zuckerburg needs to be hit with an avalanche of them.

[ramblingjohnny]

11:40 AM on 08/26/2010

Idiotic on so many levels! What more the fact that it was not dismissed immediately by the courts make me want to go outside strip naked and yell at the madness of the world!

[resu427]

09:38 AM on 08/26/2010

In other news, a class action lawsuit is being filed against FaceBook, on behalf of Red Book Magazine, Yellow Book Phone Book, Kelly Blue Book, and every man who ever had a Little Black Book....Because they had the "X" Book idea first.

It will be interesting to see if the judge in this case, Her Honor Law Book, will have any sort of bias for one side or the other.

[Aldyth]

10:10 AM on 08/26/2010

It's rather like Subway trying to get cease and desist orders against any restaurant using the term "foot long". Like Subway actually invented the foot long sandwich.

And Donald Trump trying to get a copyright on "You're Fired".

Utterly ridiculous. And a complete lack of perception on their importance in the universe.

Fanned!

[resu427]

12:40 PM on 08/26/2010

My first fan! I should write this down in a note....ummm....thing. A pad of paper meant for taking notes. You know...

[emmeaki]

11:35 PM on 08/26/2010

Don't forget the milk industry trying to sue for the use of the word "milk" in soy milk products.

[IfIonlyknew]

11:56 AM on 08/26/2010

Good call....fanned

[boomer7391]

09:34 AM on 08/26/2010

It's time to bring Facebook down.

[Alien Nation]

10:06 AM on 08/26/2010

Yep - it's time for this monster to have it legs hacked off.

[the-lexicon]

12:21 PM on 08/26/2010

now that you mention it, the "original" legal word terrorists was the company "Monster Cables"

They make overpriced wires for car and home stereos.

They even tried to get the Boston Red Sox Fenway Park to cease and desist using the word "monster" for "The Green Monster", the large wall in left field.

[mjb5406]

09:25 AM on 08/26/2010

Mark Zuckerburg and his people have lost their marbles. Another attempt by an entity with deep pockets to extort a small company. Like anyone would confuse "Teachbook" with "Facebook". Do we now have to call the things they use in school a "textcollectionofpagesboundtogether\"?