Lets f@ce it, the lawyers have us all on strings.

I hope they pay me a royalty every time they use Book®. That's mine.

They're protecting their brand; their target is companies that want to bank on their name recognition (which is an intellectual property).

Let's say there's a site called Faceblog that came along after Facebook became a big deal, and is a social networking site similar to Facebook, but which collects user info and sells it to spammers. Now Facebook can take action to prevent their mutilation of the Facebook brand.

Similar to Toys'R'Us protecting the 'R'Us brand very actively, to prevent the dilution of their brand with copycats that people might think are related in some way to them, like Chainsaws'R'Us or somesuch.

Trademarks are a long-recognized facet of business, and it is one of the cases (similar to patents and copyright) I think government does have a place, at least to a decent extent.

In other words, it's only idiotic on its face.

So can I say face-time as long as I don't capitalize "face"?

I can understand the lowercase "i" preceding the name of a product because it's so distinct, and especially "R" Us as it had never been commonly used before. But "face" is such a common word. This one could really get abused by FaceBook.

I think I'll start a company named "iFaces R Us".

Face Face Face Face Face Face Face Face Face Face Face Face Face Face Face Face Face Face

Maybe they are just trying to save Face.

Reminds one of the attempt by Mickey D to have a Scottish restaurant, which had been in business something like two hundred years, to change it's name from MacDonalds to something else. They were told, in no uncertain terms, to pound sand.

If you read your own link, you'd learn that the trademark applies only to "Telecommunication services, namely, providing online chat rooms and electronic bulletin boards for transmission of messages among computer users in the field of general interest and concerning social and entertainment subject matter, none primarily featuring or relating to motoring or to cars."

In other words, only for the business area in which they operate.

What's wrong with that? That's pretty much what trademarks are for.

While I can't fault FB for doing whatever they can get away with to protect their brand, allowing this TM does seem unreasonable, regardless of the limitation to keep it within the context of their business area.

I thought that trademarking common English words was not something that was typically allowed? Sure you could TM a stylized logo with the word and protect that but certainly not the word.

I wonder what this means for a company like facetime.com, they are in a different but related business segment...

I thought that trademarking common English words was not something that was typically allowed?

Tell that to Apple, or Shell, or Time, or Caterpillar, or...

Once again, trademarks are allowed only for the business area in which you operate. Open a gas station with "Shell" in the name, or a magazine with "Time" prominent, and you'll get sued. But a gas station named "Time" or a magazine named "Shell" would have no problem.

Great article, Christopher !

I would like to add that the new .co domain is a great alternative to .com.

1. Only 500.000 registered until now since the launch in June. 176m .com to compare
2. Google has approved .co as a domain for international use, meaning that their search engine sees .co websites as interesting both for their local and global search engine.