A new social networking website designed to bring professionals within related engineering fields together, Designbook, was recently sued by Facebook over trademark infringement. The startup, based in Vermont, has been told that their new name would cause brand confusion.
This is relatively common in the world of software startups and organizations. Facebook has asserted rights over both the prefix “face” and suffix “book” with regard to other social networking websites, according to Ars Technica. However, the creators of Designbook may have an ace up their sleeve: Like Facebook itself, their name comes from an actual item. Previous accused violators had used the “book” suffix just as a sort of shorthand to mean “social media website,” but a Designbook relates to a prototype book that engineers use.
The goal of Designbook is for entrepreneurs and engineers to create social media profiles that explain their business concepts. They could then crowdsource resources in order to make their vision a reality. The website describes itself as a “peer to peer marketplace,” where like minded peers could work together for equity stake in their businesses. This could potentially help highly skilled workers who want to start their own organization immediately develop a network of similarly able technicians.
Facebook‘s trademarks
Many tech companies keep a careful eye over their name and variations thereof in order to preserve its integrity. Sometimes this practice leads them to make faintly hilarious sounding trademarks: the letter “F,” “Face,” “FB,” the number “0” with a period, “Facepile” and “Nextstop.com” have all been registered as trademarks of the social media giant. Because trademarks lapse unless they are enforced through legal steps, Facebook needs to send notices to those it finds abusing those trademarks, even if they appear to be relatively mild infringements.
Designbook may or may not wind up bowing to Facebook. The organization is stuck between a rock and a hard place – changing a name this late in the game can be very damaging for a startup. Depending on where the court goes, Designbook may wind up having to pay a fine. Of special note, though, is that none of the company’s logos or graphic materials are even remotely reminiscent of Mark Zuckerberg’s company. Of course, other major organizations have made even larger leaps when defending their trademarks. Apple Inc., once sued A.pl, a Polish grocery store, over its name.
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