Facebook Sues Teachbook Over Use of 'Book'

[Sporkman]

Facebook Sues Teachbook Over Use of 'Book'

Chloe Albanesius - PC Magazine Chloe Albanesius - Pc Magazine – Fri Aug 27, 5:47 am ET

Facebook is going after a social-networking site for teachers, dubbed Teachbook, for attaching the word "book" to its name.

The "book" part of Facebook is highly distinctive and most people associate it with social networking, Facebook said in a lawsuit it filed against Teachbook earlier this month. The only reason Teachbook is using "book" in its name is to unfairly benefit from Facebook's popularity, according to court documents...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/zd/20100827/tc_zd/254026;_ylt=AhO1cZUCWfxO.HQMrGAgMY9H2ocA;_ylu=X3oD MTJyZTNjY2lrBGFzc2V0A3pkLzIwMTAwODI3LzI1NDAyNgRjY2 9kZQNtb3N0cG9wdWxhcgRjcG9zAzgEcG9zAzgEc2VjA3luX3Rv cF9zdG9yaWVzBHNsawNmYWNlYm9va3N1ZXM-

[Captain Smiley Pants]

Gotta hop on that copyright for the word "the"! Oh shoot I owe myself royalties now!

[Sporkman]

Gotta hop on that copyright for the word "the"! Oh shoot I owe myself royalties now!

You might be getting a C & D letter from Captain Crunch(tm) lawyers at some point...

[cgroza]

Hmm, they should sue the books for stealing the facebook name:D :D :D

[chrisinspace]

I'm going to start MyLinkedFaceSpaceBookster.com and see what happens.

[Sporkman]

I'm going to start MyLinkedFaceSpaceBookster.com and see what happens.

...you mean:

MyLinkedFaceFriendSpaceinBookster.com

:) ...lest you get a parse error.

[Paul820]

All i can say is....PATHETIC

[LowSky]

Paul Allen just sued Facebook and like 12 other companies today as well. It amazing how much money is squandered on dumb lawsuits

[Captain Smiley Pants]

That money is not squandered! I'LL SUE YOU!

[kamaboko]

As case Facebook will lose. What's next, are they going to patent vowels and consonants? I guess book stores around the world will have to remove the word "book" from their website names. For instances, Christianbook.com. LOL. They'll bring God into the case as a co-conspirator.

[lee shore]

Monocellular minded playgound fodder.

[Brunellus]

OK a bit of clarification regarding intellectual property protections may be in order.

There are three types of intellectual property protection in the United States:


Copyright, which protects the author of a work, giving him, among other things, the right to say who can reproduce, distribute, sell, or transform his work, subject to certain limits, for a limited term. The copyright term for works created by individual authors is currently the life of the author plus 90 years. Copyright is automatic--although to get money damages, a copyright holder must first register his copyright. Certain things are NOT copyrightable, though-- short, common words and phrases, for instance.

Patents, which protect inventors of processes or machines, by allowing them, for a limited time, the right to use and bring to market the technology they invent. To be patentable, the invention must be novel (that is, not already in existence), non-obvious (that is, it would not be obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to combine two existing elements to arrive at the invention, and not otherwise illegal. There are a LOT more formalities to be observed here. To maintain patent protection, the patent holder must continue to pay for it and renew it--otherwise the patent lapses.

The third--and the one at issue here--is Trademark. Trademark is intended to protect sellers of goods or providers of services--as well as their buyers--by allowing the seller to associate a distinctive mark with their goods or services. That way, a buyer can know that he is receiving THAT seller's good or service, and NOT any other. Getting trademark protection is like getting patent protection--you need to file for it, and you can't trademark things that are merely descriptive or super-generic. What you CAN do, however, is go after people who use trademarks that are SO close to YOUR trademark that a reasonable consumer might be deceived into believing that he is dealing with YOU, and not with your competitor.

So the entire "-book" suffix case hinges on whether TeachBook can be shown to be different ENOUGH from Facebook that reasonable consumers won't think one is related to the other.

Trademarks tend to be litigated very aggressively, too, because of a quirk: if you don't defend your trademark, and allow it to lapse into common, everyday use, your trademark rights go away. Thus, Facebook has every incentive to sue for trademark infringement. If *book becomes common enough, Facebook will lose the right to restrict people from offering goods or services named suspiciously similarly to their own.

[spoons]

Trademarks tend to be litigated very aggressively, too, because of a quirk: if you don't defend your trademark, and allow it to lapse into common, everyday use, your trademark rights go away. Thus, Facebook has every incentive to sue for trademark infringement. If *book becomes common enough, Facebook will lose the right to restrict people from offering goods or services named suspiciously similarly to their own.

A bit like how you'd "Google" on Bing, or call every vacuum cleaner a Hoover, or call all cola "Coke".

[Brunellus]

A bit like how you'd "Google" on Bing, or call every vacuum cleaner a Hoover, or call all cola "Coke".
precisely. Trademarks have to be defended or abandoned--there is no middle way--at least the way the U.S. trademark system works.

[Sporkman]

Another tidbit:


This is not the first time Facebook has gone after a company with the word "book" in its title. Travel site PlaceBook recently changed its name to TripTrace after Facebook contacted the site and said its name was confusingly similar to its own.

Companies using the word "face", meanwhile, might also want to hide from Facebook's lawyers. As TechCrunch pointed out, Facebook is trying to trademark the word "face." ..