Facebook asks trademark office for more time to oppose trademarks.
If you want the U.S. Patent and Trademark office to approve a trademark for your social networking site that includes the word “book”, you can expect a challenge.
That’s because Facebook is repeatedly filing requests with the trademark office to extend the time it has to oppose for good cause these trademark registrations.
For example, there’s dart player social network Dartbook. Facebook filed for a 90 day extension to oppose with a month to go before the expiration of Facebook’s opportunity to oppose the mark for good cause, saying it “needs additional time to investigate the claim”.
Ditto for FamilyHomeBook.com, DocBookMD.com, and WookBook.com.
Now, Facebook probably has perfectly legitimate concerns about these sites playing off the Facebook name.
If you’re starting a social network I highly recommend avoiding “book” in your name. But if you must, expect Facebook to throw up a red flag.
Amr says
fb sucks! I own facebooksucks (dot) com 🙂
Dave Zan says
Tends to make you think why those other parties included the word “book” in their planned social networks, considering they have other choices without necessarily riding on Facebook’s fame.
Tyler L says
What about Generic Term + Booklet? Seriously, does anyone have a professional opinion on this? Thanks…