Editor’s note: This article was first published in November 2010. It is a news item; the Lamebook case it mentions was still open when it was written, and was later settled.
Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, applied to register the word “Face” as a trademark, and the United States Patent and Trademark Office has approved it. Bear in mind that “face” is an extremely common word (and so is “book”, for that matter), so it’s hard to believe they’ve granted him the “Face” trademark.
Zuckerberg is starting to use his power in a dangerous way: his latest game seems to be suing left and right anyone who gets in his way. In fact, I’m sure that if he read this, he’d sue us too.
Zuckerberg has already taken legal action against websites that included the word “book” in their domain names, one of them being a community for teachers called Teachbook.
Not long ago he went after a travel website (PlaceBook) and forced it to change its name to “TripTrace”, so as soon as he gets hold of the “Face” trademark, he’ll start filing complaints against websites that contain that word. He’s currently in a legal battle with Lamebook.
The only condition he was given for registering the “Face” trademark is that he must actually use it rather than leave it parked.
So here’s my question: should one person be given so much power that he can register a generic word in order to harm other websites that don’t even compete with him?
Further reading
- Facebook sues Lamebook and blocks every outgoing link to the site
- Twitter’s new service: Twitter Mentions
- New social networks focused on professionals and specific markets
Featured image: Robert Scoble, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr.
