To keep us from getting sued, we will now use b*ok to represent the word that comes after Face in that company’s name.
Facebook is trying to expand its trademark rights over the word “book” by adding the claim to a newly revised version of its “Statement of Rights and Responsibilities,” the agreement all users implicitly consent to by using or accessing Facebook.
[…]
The newly revised user agreement reads as follows (emphasis ours):“You will not use our copyrights or trademarks (including Facebook, the Facebook and F Logos, FB, Face, Poke, Book and Wall), or any confusingly similar marks, except as expressly permitted by our Brand Usage Guidelines or with our prior written permission.”
Not accepting the terms isn’t really an option for anyone with a Facebook account. “By using or accessing Facebook, you agree to this Statement,” the document says.
From the article “A search of the trademark database maintained by the US Patent and Trademark Office shows Facebook with 73 active trademarks, many of them covering different uses of the words “Facebook” and “like.” Other registered trademarks cover the letter “F,” “Face,” “FB,” the number “0” with a period, “F8,” “Facebook Developer Garage,” “Wall,” “Facepile,” “Nextstop.com,” “Facebook for good,” “Friendfeed,” Facebook Insights,” “Facebook Pages,” and “Facebook Ads.”
The word ‘like’,
the letter “F”,
the word “Face”,
the NUMBER ZERO (0) with a period (.)
the alphanumeric combination F8 (numeric 264 in base 10!)
the word “Wall”.
Have Zuckerberg’s lawyers lost their little collective minds.
This is no more enforceable that a patent on salt as a food preservative.
OOPS. Where was my head. That’s 248 in base 10.
Yes but if FB has millions to spend on lawyers, you’d be amazed what “justice” they can get.
How much justice can you afford?
So … The FBI could get sued for trademark infringement?
No big deal, I’ll just read an dook, or dook an appointment with my doctor. Eventually I’ll start a community website called Fasedook. By the way, has anyone else here read The Hunger Games? It’s 3 dooks, written in a style that’s more for teens, but I rather liked them. I hear that the movie was good, but there seems to be a lot of irrational controversy (what else is new).
Anyway, if Facebook want’s to be a dick, they’ll just get pwned.
None of this matters. Facebook has been moving this way for years, slowly modifying agreements and policies to their benefit and the users’ expense. Users keep coming. Based on the many stories like this and users not leaving Facebook leads one to believe Facebook can do this without any revenue lose. So why would they not continue this way? It is a valid business move, strategically giving them what they need to justify there market cap.
If people really cared, they would quit using Facebook.
This is what concerns me, so much attention and effort put into bi-partisan politics and fighting, no one pays much attention to stuff liek this….[Corporate power] knows, Phaese Boouck is all powerful and merciless, like Disney, Apple. Oh crap a team of black armed uniformed commandos wearing those company emblems just stormed my house.
>Not accepting the terms isn’t really an option for anyone with a Facebook account. “
Like when Scientologists sued all of UseNet, I AM IN THE CLEAR!
Oh Pooh, now what do we call it?
What is Facebook?
Voice of Foghorn Leghorn:
“Boy, I say boy, I certainly am glad I never bothered lookin’ at that Facebook thing. Fortunately, I keep my vocabulary numbered, for just such emergencies.”
How is facebook planning to use this? I’ve never heard of anything like this in my entire life. I have a facebook account so I will keep an eye out on this.
This is so crazy. Facebook is trying to take over the world. This is kind of funny though. Will see how it turns out for the future.
“You will not use our copyrights or trademarks (including Facebook, ….. except as expressly permitted by our Brand Usage Guidelines or with our prior written permission.”
Is it all right to mention Facebook here?
What company would want to own the trade mark rights to the word “boopk”? Only zuckerberg knows the true agenda.
I wonder how this will affect facebook in the longrun? You have to wonder what other trademarks they want to own.
Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American Lawyer.
Did the term “Facebook” exist before the company “Facebook”?
Prima facie the inept lawyers have got to take their suits and go home with their tails between their legs.
Book,book,book,book,book,book. There I used the word, now sue me!
There goes my idea for an ethnic intolerance site called racekook.com
The Face, like IBM in fast-forward.
Too many damn sheeps in this world I tell ya!
All I can say is…
F*ck *ff FaceB**k
Clash of the Titans! Facebook versus MacBook.
WTF?!
Facebo*k versus MacBo*k?
Can you explain?
Do you know what a Macbo*k is? Do you know what Facebo*k is?!
FTW? And the secret word is… “book”.
But “facebook” was in common usage before the website was even founded.
Hell, I watched an SNL the other day from 10/06/2001..it was Jimmy Fallon’s, “Jarret’s Room” where Jarret and Gobi present the “FRESHMAN FACEBOOK AWARDS” (on the screen).
IP laws and IP lawyers will be the death of freedom and innovation.
So now we know why the Barnes & Noble eReader goes by the name “Nook”. Because “Book” was trademarked?! Or because it just sounds more folksy? You know, “my books are in my Nook”.
But I can’t understand why they’d trademark “like”. Because it’s part of their “like” ranking feature? If anyone wants to get REALLY picky about this. The term “like us” was first used in a copyrighted work called “Catch 22”, by Joseph Heller, published in 1962. I doubt the rights to “like us” or “like” was legally acquired from the novel’s author or his estate.
This corporate stupidity reminds me of how, just a few years ago, McDonald’s, tried to stamp out the use of the prefix “Mc” in every other form of business. And someone over in Scotland had to point out to them, that their family was the oldest living original owner of the name “McDonald”. Not some fast foot chain. So I believe McD had to step back from forcing other to give up using “Mc” as part of their brand names.
And btw, I can think of some other ways to spell this website’s name, not yet trademarked or copyrighted. How about “PhaceBooc”? And I sure “Booq” also works. And if you really want to mess with their little corporate heads, “BaseFook” would be universally understood by everyone who sees it. So just how much of all possible constant and vowel combinations is PfaseBouk prepared to trademark? Because why exactly do they even care to trademark this stuff? Paranoia over potential loss of profit, from anything that even sounds a little bit like PhaseBooq? I’m glad now I don’t “like” them.
And also btw, as of Feb. 28,2012 Yahoo Inc. is suing F*ceB*ok over Intellectual Property Rights, it claims to hold. And so it begins.
Yeah, I do believe that the first component of a lawyer‘s mind is the ability to deny common sense.
Its so common after all.
There is a reason for Mark Zuckerberg’s use of the term Face Book.
It was a pre-existing term.
Its even made up of two other pre-existing terms which don’t alter their meaning in the least in their combination.
If he had called his web site Quoyvrbnitz he might have a claim and then he could sick lawyers on other people who tried to use the name.
But face is the thing that stares at lawyers in disbelief at the fact that they are booking multiple hundred dollar invoices for coming up with such patently stupid arguments instead of just telling his client that the English language is by definition at fault here since its a medium of information exchange.
Oh brother. Another good reason I have never used Facebook or Twitter, and never will.
Always wondered why Leo LaPorte didn’t sue Twitter…
I think all of you Facebookers only encourage this twit’s obnoxious behaviour. Copyright the zits on Zuke’s face.
This is a comment from an Ars Technica article, and since this thread is going to the same direction, I’ll copy it, so things are clarified.
——
There’s a LOT of ignorance floating around this thread.
First, Trademarks aren’t universal. They’re expressly tied to a specific industry or type of business. For example, Winchell’s has a trademark on their name, but only for donut shops. McDonald’s has a trademark on their name, but only for fast food restaurants. Nike has a trademark on their name, but only for athletic gear. I can make a Winchell’s bicycle shop, or a McDonald’s nursery, or a Nike fast food store.
Similarly, Facebook’s assertion of their Trademark would arguably only apply to social media sites, but with a good enough lawyer, could maybe be argued for any virtual business. In theory, a website called Playbook that dealt in sports statistics would be defensible, but whether they’d want to spend the money to fight off Facebook’s attack is another matter.
flunk wrote:
Dictionary terms can’t be trademarked. They can claim anything they like but it’s not enforceable.
This is false. You can’t trademark a dictionary term that is in common use with regard to your business or product. You wouldn’t be able to register a trademark on the words hamburger or hot dog if you’re a fast food chain, but you could definitely register Hot Dog’s Surf Shop, or Hamburger Acting Studio, for example.
——
“First, Trademarks aren’t universal. They’re expressly tied to a specific industry or type of business.”
Tell that to Disney Inc, who forbade daycare centers from using anything that looked like Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck, from adorning their walls. Apparently Disney felt people would confuse these daycare businesses with their theme parks. Or that the existence of copyrighted characters, on the walls, was responsible for some amount of the daycares’ revenue. I never heard that Disney Inc asked for any royalties. Just the painted images be removed. Of course the daycares could buy all the Disney toys they wanted, and fill them to the ceilings. They just couldn’t outwardly display a Disney theme. How is a daycare the same as an amusement park?
Something occurred to me about the SOPA bill’s threat to imprison people up to five years for “stealing” a song. Are they gonna start building new prisons to hold all the copyright violators? That would not only get extremely expensive. It would bring down the nation’s economy if lots more people couldn’t work because they were sent to prison. Maybe the RIAA and MPAA can foot the bill to build and run all the new copyright prisons. Yeah, NOT going to happen. As long as they only imprison a handful of people, a year at a time. They’ll bully the vast majority of “violators” into coughing up the money to stay out of prison. And you can be sure they will pick on only those they know can’t afford to go to prison, and can find the money to shell out.
Yes, I know SOPA and PIPA are both dead, for now. But you know they’ll try again, right after the 2012 election is over. What we really need to do is the challenge this “loss of profit of future sales” interpretation of the copyright law, as being an invalid reason to punish. I always thought that a copyright protected one’s work from being sold by another, without one receiving any part of the sales revenue. But copying a work and giving it away to others for nothing, wasn’t protected by the law.
You can sing the “Happy Birthday” song at parties, without fear of legal reprisals. You just can’t make money from a recorded show, or paid event, that incorporates that song into its content, without paying the song’s copyright holder what they feel it’s worth. Simply put, if you make money using it, the copyright holder must also. But if used for free, then there’s no fee to be derived from that use.
The same should hold true for anything traded or given away. I’ve bought any number of old LPs from a local Goodwill store. Were they required to pay the record labels a portion of the dollar they got for each used record they sold me? I’m pretty sure the answer is NO. So how is reselling an old LP, that the Label owner gets paid nothing for, any different from someone copying that record’s songs and giving them to anyone for free, or charging just enough to cover material expense?
Today’s interpretation of copyright law, is clearing being corrupted by corporate greed. If the US Supreme Court had any guts, they’d decide what’s been done with it over the years, is unconstitutional. But I’m sure the Court never wants to decide this. And if they ever do, they’ll side with the corporate interests. Because, as you know, corporations are like giant people. Who have more rights than all of us much smaller, normal sized people, put together.
uhmmmmmm….facebook was what they traditionally called the low budget version of yearbooks, just the pictures and names without the awards and team photos and other shiznit…just the face and name..see…facebook. Since they have been doing that since at least the seventies I’m pretty sure prior art applies. Unless we became a completely corporate run state while I was distracted.
When you think about it facebook isn’t really a book. I mean, NOT in the conventional way. Maybe its creator was thinking of a police “booking”. Which is more of a record of being logged in jail for a crime. Not the most positive or flattering form of “book”. The only other one that come to mind is betting on some event or sport. Making book. Taking bets. Seeing one’s bookie. Usually this is an illegal act. Or if not, at least it’s a self-destructive vice. You can also book a ride on a plane, or a stay at a hotel. But I can’t stand Facebook sounds like it’s close to any of these.
If it were, I’d copy their system and call it Mugshots or LifePool. How about Thinkspace? Wait, they’re all taken already. Dang! I’ll just bet Facebook was registered before, and Zuckerberg bought them out, or sued them out. And if not, then that explains why the name doesn’t make much sense as a “book” of faces. It was one of the few names left that hadn’t been registered.
BTW, there’s also a “LookBook” for fashion advice. But a “LookNook” site name didn’t not come up on Google. And it appears “MyKisser” is registered as an App, but not a website. FB should start worrying.
All Your Face Are Belong To Book