Well, yes. As I'd noted in my edit, I was... maybe exaggerating a little. However, it was to get my point across.Tearopenthelives said:
I mean, really. They're trying to trademark a very commonly used word. How could that be allowed to happen? They didn't invent the word, they didn't invent the usage of Face____. Yet, for some reason, this multi-billion dollar company has decided that even though they're billionaires and have made slaves of more than 500 million active users. (Of which, half are almost always guaranteed to log in on any given day.)
Think about that. They have made such a big impact. And they're wanting more?
Why, so they can insure that even though they made this much money, they won't ever make less than that? It makes me wonder: what if MySpace had originally been named MyFace? What would the impacts be? Would Facebook be allowed to go through on this Trademarking even though something almost exactly the same had been there first (and failed)?
I wasn't being hysterical. I was exaggerating to clearly state the ridiculousness of this situation.Sikachu said:
Using your example, I shall explain:
The Escapist is a registered trademark. As is Facebook. But Facebook wants to go a little bit further. Facebook also wants to trademark "face". To make this equivalent with your example, it would be like The Escapist trademarking the word "the" to keep people from creating other sites and forums named The _____.
(But if I did happen to be "expounding [my] ignorance on others" I would trust you people to kindly point out why my point of view is wrong. With explanations.)
Based on the fact that in my source it mentioned that FaceCash had asked for more time to form a rebuttal [small](but, seriously? It's been five years, where've you been, FaceCash? You should've been aware of this attempt a long time ago)[/small] I would assume so, yes. I don't think this Face____ nonsense will be limited to social media (again, looking at FaceCash being a different way to transfer money. Like Paypal.) especially sinceVoodoo_Person said:
is such a loose definition. An electronic bulletin board could include forums, especially since they really are a transmission of messages among users in a field of general interest.CBC News said:
And I think we can all agree that Facebook != a forum.
Quite certainly. But have you really thought about that fact? Have you thought about the injustice that a multi-billion dollar company can suddenly decide that no other company can include a common term?newfoundsky said:
Say a yoga company called "New Life" had a website. Say New Life was so successful they wanted to trademark more than just "New Life". They also want to trademark "life". Well, that would certainly screw some people over. Sunlife Financial? Screw them, they've got 'life' in their name. They owe New Life money. What's that? They've been a successful company for longer than New Life? No, that doesn't get taken into account.
The fact that you put "sheesh" into your post makes it sound like you really don't care. How do you know what you will want to do further down the line? How do you know you won't want to plan on building a company and you'll want to name it something that involves a common noun that has been trademarked by another company?
The fact that Facebook might get away with trademarking "face" could merely be the beginning. If they are successful in doing so, soon other companies will follow suit, knowing it's possible. And soon so many common words will no longer be able to be used in company names.
The snowball effect this would have is ludicrous.
For this, please see some of my above responses. Based on the wording, I don't think the trademark would be simply limited to social networking sites. It sounds like almost all companies that will be comprised of message boards (ie, forums as well) or online chatrooms will also be affected.Nalesnik said:
And when you add in the snowball effect I mentioned, what with other companies surely following suit were this to pass... It begins to look like a fairly bleak future for companies. The amount of laws that would need to be passed through would be ridiculous.
And I was by no means belittling the extremely worrisome fact that they're trying to patent the human genome. I mean, the genome that they decoded was merely one person's. How could a company own what that person actually is? I assure you, this is not something I have been ignoring. However, that was not the issue that I addressed in this thread.
Oh, definitely. But the problem becomes that "About-Face" would not be related, in my mind, to "Facebook" were they both companies. Especially if "About-Face" was a message board, and "Facebook" being... well, facebook.PedroSteckecilo said:
The loose definition that was stated about it being about "general interest" also becomes arguable. Anything in the world could be general interest for a group of people. Absolutely anything. It merely depends who I'm addressing at that point.
And again, I cannot seem to reiterate my point that if Facebook becomes successful, no doubt other companies will follow suit. And then it will just become a nightmare of a conundrum. Which brings a question to mind: if this happens, will they also start trademarking words in other languages that hold the same meaning? Will Facebook one day also trademark "LivreduFace" or simply the word "livre" ? (Livre is book in French, for those who don't know.) And if so, where will they draw the line?
This issue will just keep multiplying in size as time goes on.
