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Facebook's Faces Trademark Suit Over Timeline
sydneyhype writes "Facebook's recently announced Timeline feature is up against legal action from an online social-scrapbooking company that has been in business since 2008. The company, Timelines.com, filed a trademark-infringement suit yesterday against Facebook, claiming it is to prevent being 'rolled over and quite possibly eliminated by the unlawful action by the world's largest and most powerful social-media company, Facebook.'"
National Geographic, the band Ayreon, the band Rennaissance, MIT and, despite being dead, Michael Crichton have joined the suit.
You have left us at the mercy of trolls and idiots. Headlines don't even make sense anymore.
The term "time line" is such a common generic term. I doubt their suit has any legal standing.
If it did have legal standing, then we would see sites like Dictionary.com suing every site that had a dictionary, or Sex.com that sued every news site that had a sex carried column. It would freeze the Internet as we know it and all sites would be required to use pig latin to communicate (until most common pig latin terms are monopolized, and then we'd only be left with gibberish if we're lucky).
Facebook isn't marketing this as Timelines.com by Facebook or even Timelines by Facebook, it's simply a timeline of your facebook information. A google search of Timelines had multiple items (not related to the news of the suit or to the FB feature) before timelines.com, including at least one other site that does the exact same thing Timelines seems to do. A search of the word Timeline failed to find the site in three pages of links.
If FB were marketing the new Timelines website by FB then the site might have a case, but FB is using a generic term in accordance with it's definition.
Somebody should make a Timeline about the history of such trolls.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
Timeline.com is just making chronological lists of historical events, which anyone can do with a piece of paper and pen. That idea is probably older than Jesus. How is this a trade-mark infringement? It's like trying to sue someone for making a Venn diagram.
This is a trade-mark dispute not a patent dispute. I don't think anyone is questioning the process of recording chronological information; just the name timeline...
This isn't about what Timelines.com does, nor is it about the common use of the word - you're all missing the point or don't understand trademarks.
Timelines.com applied for and received the trademark on timelines (trademark number 85432026, look it up on http://tess2.uspto.gov/ ) therefore, in the US at least, they have the sole right to use that word in connection with the caveats on the mark (which includes pretty much anything to do with computers). If someone else, facebook or anyone comes along and uses that word, they have the right to tell them to stop. Otherwise - what's the point of trademarks? FFS I'm Australian and I know more about your trademark system than you guys do.
If you want to argue about "common use" of the word, then it's the USPTO that you need to be directing your complaints too, not timelines.com
I think, if anybody should sue them, it should be Twitter. The current Facebook setup seems like a complete ripoff of twitter's style, with its "[X] new stories" bar at the top that you click on to see recent posts. If it's worthwhile to sue over a black rounded rectangle, this seems worth suing over too.
Maybe timelines.com should be suing the owners of timeline.com before they go after Facebook?
Trade-marks are intended to identify products and services for a particular industry. "timeline.com" appears to be an investigation and security company while "timelines.com" is a historical database. Facebook Timelines on the other hand is both a similar name and similar service and therefore infringes on "timelines.com"
Maybe they should just shorten it from "Facebook Timelines" to "FaceTime" and save themselves the hassle of a lawsuit :)
Thanks, I'll be here all week.
I mean, attach the word "infringement" to any story, and the marketing people will go nuts! Facebook's lawyers will quickly figure out whether there is any merit to the case, and either change their word or kill Timelines' TM registration. My guess is that Timelines.com knows they're dead meat already, and they're just trying to get a little more VC money before the axe falls.
Yeah, but before 2000 a well-executed Hello World was sufficient to get VC funding.
And even for a couple of years after that anyone who hadn't gone completely insane needed very little brain to achieve. (That would explain how I got anywhere, anyway.)
At the top of their page they have a "Find us on Facebook" link....
So they're using Facebook for their own commercial gain, and now trying to sue them...... what Facebook doesn't have a clause in their TOU about giving FB a license to use their mark?
Maybe Facebook should exercise their right to "turn off" timelines's FB page as a retaliatory measure :)
If I enter my last name.com, meaning "strong.com", it redirects to http://www.wellsfargoadvantagefunds.com/.
Should I sue because it tarnishes my name, even though it is completely unrelated based on use and classification?
Give me a break. They want money. :)
Isn't it too descriptive to be a trademark to begin with?