Facebook and court seemed to mixed up together again, says TechCrunch. PlaceBook and TeachBook have no part in it this time. The business is not in trouble for using the word “book” in its name. Facebook wants to make “face” a trademarked name. This just means they are trying to pick up where an additional business left off in 2008, the U.K. business called CIS Internet Limited. Facebook hopes to move forward with things. It already bought CIS’s trademark application.
The trademark Facebook wants
It is not really astonishing that Facebook wants to trademark “face”. Sometimes it is essential for corporate branding to make sure you trademark. In this case, it may be a little out of hand. Once a man tried to trademark “ganja.” That was an interesting court case. There was another ridiculous one. Fark.com tried trade marking “NSFW”. And then there’s Snooki from “The Jersey Shore,” who tried to trademark her nickname so that nobody else could cash in on that train wreck of a brand. None of those individuals got their trademark. It is likely that Facebook will lose face also.
There is not an approval coming from Aaron Greenspan
Aaron Greenspan doesn’t think Facebook should be trying to trademark “face.” Aaron Greenspan claims to have made facebook with Mark Zuckerberg. Greenspan’s business Think Computer created a mobile payments app called FaceCash, and if Facebook gets its desired “face” trademark, Greenspan would have to pay. Also, Apple has a Facetime video calling app that the iPhone 4 has which would make them owe money. Greenberg and no doubt numerous other entrepreneurs would appreciate being able to use the generic term in naming future products.
Facebook, wipe the egg off your face and move on
When thinking about how aggressive Facebook has been in the past, seems like unlikely that “face” could be too big to it. Facebook has bigger fish to fry. Anybody that uses “face” could have to be careful, including those who do not even want to run a business, or Zuckerberg might get them. Consider the movie “Face/Off” staring Nicholas Cage and John Travolta, or even consider the novel “Face of Another” by Kobo Abe. There is a big dispute. Is all this over faces? Even a Tleilaxu face dancer from the “Dune” books wouldn’t be able to hide.
Additional reading
FACE
tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial and amp;entry=78980756
TechCrunch
techcrunch.com/2010/08/26/trademark-face/
Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark
