Facebook: De"face"ing the internet

[Vrach]

Erm, I could be wrong here... but these trademarks are just for company/product names afaik? So, say, Apple couldn't go off and develop an application for iPhone called iFace and shit like that. I'm pretty sure Guild Wars has "Guild Wars" trademarked, but that doesn't mean you can't talk about guild wars in other games. EA probably has "Battlefield" and "Bad Company" trademarked, that doesn't mean war generals are thinking of a new way to call a battlefield or you can't post "this party sucks, I'm in such bad company right now" on your Twitter or sth.

That's exactly what it is. As I seem to need to keep restating, the original post was exaggeration of the problem. Why? Because it might not affect you now, but if this goes through, a company will now own a major word in the English language. "Guild Wars", "Bad Company" - those are phrases. Facebook is looking to trademark a word. Sure, "Battlefield" is a word as well, but I somehow doubt it is used nearly as often as "face".

They won't own a word, they'll own a name in the business. MAJOR difference. I know you mean the same thing, but still, fact is, who gives a shit, unless you're building a company and want to name it FaceMelting incorporated, you're not going to affected at all. 99% people will never even come across it as a problem, other 1% are just gonna rethink and name their company/product something different.

No offense, but you're blowing the discussion out of proportion. What you say is an exaggeration on your part is right about equivalent to people talking about murdering babies when "discussing" video game violence. Your phrasing makes it look like something completely ridiculous, which would indeed necessitate a thread and a lot of uprising where it's just a standard business practice with a major product trademarking a somewhat more commonly used word.

And seriously, how often do you even use the word face? Hell, I use the word windows far more. I probably even talk about apples at least just as much.