Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Facebook's Faces Trademark Suit Over Timeline

Posted by Soulskill on from the ask-the-traveler-for-help dept.

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.'"

8 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. In other news.. by monoqlith · · Score: 4, Insightful

    National Geographic, the band Ayreon, the band Rennaissance, MIT and, despite being dead, Michael Crichton have joined the suit.

  2. Help! Taco, come back to us! by utkonos · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You have left us at the mercy of trolls and idiots. Headlines don't even make sense anymore.

    1. Re:Help! Taco, come back to us! by OzPeter · · Score: 4, Funny

      You have left us at the mercy of trolls and idiots. Headlines don't even make sense anymore.

      Grasshopper [1], with the great master having achieved enlightenment and moved on from our plane of existence the time has come for you to push yourself beyond your limits and reach for enlightenment yourself. Only when you have studied the The great work and understood its nuances will you only start to understand such inscrutable works as "facebook's faces trademark suit over timeline"
       
      [1] Or "Young Padawan" for those who were too young to have experienced the sublime master (or was that the "ridiculous master" - I really appreciated Kill Bill for a number of reasons)

      --
      I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
  3. Too generic by stephanruby · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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).

     

  4. Very weak case by dwillden · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.
    1. Re:Very weak case by flimflammer · · Score: 4, Informative

      It doesn't help Facebook "stole" the timelines url on facebook.com from timelines.com (which is the url the site was using to bring in their traffic) and used it to redirect to their own offering, essentially stealing the traffic which intended to go to timelines.com and instead went to the facebook version. Considering timelines.com have a valid trademark, Facebook does appear to be in a position where confusion is inevitable.

  5. Re:Maybe I'm Naive But.. by NFN_NLN · · Score: 4, Informative

    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...

  6. Re:Maybe I'm Naive But.. by NFN_NLN · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.