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Facebook Says It Owns 'Book'
An anonymous reader writes "The Chicago Tribune is reporting that Facebook has sued a tiny start-up called Teachbook.com over the use of 'book' in its name. The start-up, which has two employees, aims to provide tools for teachers to manage their classrooms and share lesson plans and other resources. 'Effectively they're bombing a mosquito here, and we're not sure why they want to do that,' Teachbook.com co-director Greg Shrader told the Tribune. Facebook said its use of 'book' in its name is 'highly distinctive in the context of online communities and networking websites.' Facebook apparently is alleging that no other online 'network of people' can use the word 'book' in its name without violating its trademark."
Did some peeking on the wayback machine... domain names that were registered before facebook launched: flybook.com sportsbook.com buybook.com computerbook.com skybook.com Perhaps the most damning, though.... Buddybook.com.. this is from way back in 1999: "Welcome to Buddy Book.com, an innovative internet address book which helps keep track of all your online experiences." http://web.archive.org/web/19991128035308/http://buddybook.com/ It's not that similar to facebook, true... but it's a 'social' thing, which by their own logic, seems to be close enough... whoever owns that site ought to sue them!
Teachbook appears to be a social/community website, close to the area of what Facebook does. I would think that the "teachbook" name was chosen on purpose to be "facebook for teachers/teaching". Well, you can't do that without facebook going after you. IANAL so I don't know if facebook can or should prevail, but it seems to me that they sort of have a point.
Now, contrast this to a previous action of facebook: http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/10/facebook-placebook/
They went after a startup travel website, i.e. a site for you to book vacations in the places you visit called... well... placebook! I mean who better for the name placebook than a site where you book... places... The site in question had, in the end, to back down and change their name to triptrace: http://blog.triptrace.com/2010/08/19/we-tell-the-world-placebook-is-now-triptrace/ . Now THAT was ridiculous.
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Given that teachbook is a social networking site but for a specialized niche, I think it's fair to say that they are doing that.
If you go to http://www.uspto.gov/ and search for "book" you get over 9.000 results, including hankybook, partybook, planbook mobook. I'm pretty sure this is FB's record. Their description of services pretty much covers the earth, moon and stars online. It seems overly broad, even including peer-to-browser photo sharing services namely, providing a website featuring technology enabling users to upload, view and download digital photos. I'm not sure how it got through without being narrowed.
Normally there's a reference that says it's not an attempt to trademark a generic word (like "book") but I don't see that in FB's app. Probably because their mark is FACEBOOK and not FACE BOOK. I'm not entirely sure, I've only been through the process a couple times.
Seems like a stretch to me. If their name was "teacherfacebook", then I'd side with FB. But trying to trademark "book" in the context of any online collection of individuals seems way out of line. Since one could argue that online repositories are merely a modern evolution of books, then you're basically letting FB trademark the world.
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There are 54 matches in /usr/share/dict, though facebook isn't one of them.
$ grep .book$ /usr/share/dict/words | xargs echo
bankbook blankbook bluebook boobook cabook casebook cashbook chapbook checkbook classbook cookbook copybook daybook doombook dopebook guidebook handbook handybook herdbook hornbook hymnbook jestbook landbook lawbook logbook matchbook needlebook notebook outbook overbook passbook playbook pocketbook pollbook promptbook rebook roadbook schoolbook scorebook scrapbook shopbook sketchbook songbook spaebook storybook studbook stylebook talebook textbook tithebook waybook wordbook workbook yearbook
In my experience, a directory/book for private high schools and colleges which shows a head-shot of each student and faculty member, gives their address on campus and their home address, has been called a "Facebook" for a long time. And seeing as Facebook was originally open to only .edu users, I'm pretty sure that was the idea.
That's what it was called at the school I attended in the early 90's anyway.
Facebook is a colloquial term for yearbook (the book that contains the faces of your classmates) in parts of the USA - I had an American girlfriend when Facebook launched who was surprised that I didn't know what a facebook was. It wasn't a word based on another word, they named the site after an existing generic term. Now they are complaining that the term is generic. Definite contenders for a 'you should have thought of that earlier' award.
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Trademarks don't work like that. Barnes & Noble isn't exactly an online social network; they're a bookseller. Since they're considered to be in different businesses, under law there is no conflict.
Also, there is no concept of "prior art" in trademarks. If, for example, I have a registered trademark that I've used to identify my business, and I've used it successfully in commerce, it doesn't really matter whether or not you used the same thing or something similar first; I may still be able to successfully sue you after issuing you a cease and desist.
IANAL, etc.
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It's not the yearbook, it's the book of incoming freshmen released at the start of school. It makes it easy to, for example, figure out the last name of the hottie you met yesterday by looking up all the girls named "Lisa" and seeing which one looks like the one you remember. It often even has a first name index to make finding people you've just met easier.
Common at small colleges / liberal arts schools across the US.
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