Facebook has filed a lawsuit against Internet start-up business Teachbook.com

According to foreign media reports, Facebook has filed a lawsuit against Internet venture teachbook.com, saying the latter used the word "book" in its trademark to violate Facebook's name rights.

Last week Facebook filed a lawsuit against the California San Jose District Court. Facebook says Teachbook's social networking site, which uses "book", is to capitalize on Facebook's reputation for social gain.

Book is the focus of controversy

Facebook said in the indictment: "The word ' book ' in the Facebook logo has no descriptive meaning and is highly specific in the area of online communities and social networking sites." “

"If other sites are free to use the prefix plus the word" book "as the name of a network service for a particular group of people, then the suffix ' book ' will become synonymous with the internet community, online services or social networking services, Facebook said in the indictment. That would seriously denigrate the specificity of Facebook's logo and damage Facebook's trademark as a special identification feature for Facebook products and services. ”

Is Facebook's name right threatened?

Teachbook is a professional network community designed for teachers. After registering with the site, teachers can communicate with their peers, such as creating, sharing, and finding course plan data and teaching videos provided by other peers, looking for online courses, teaching modules, and other educational resources.

Rob Enderle, chief analyst at Enderle Group, a technology research firm, said: "The difficulty of Facebook defending its name is the word book, which is a more common term, so it is hard to protect it effectively." Teachbook is not a direct competitor to Facebook. The company just wants to carve out another target market. ”

Facebook does not seem to want to abandon its efforts to defend its name, and the company has enough money to guarantee a trademark battle. And Teachbook lacks Facebook-backed funding to maintain long-term legal action. Enderle says Teachbook is likely to choose to give up in the face of difficulties.

Facebook sends a clear signal

In the indictment, Facebook did not mention the specific losses it caused to the company. In the indictment, Facebook asked the court to declare the Teachbook registered trademark invalid and prohibit the site from continuing to use the domain name. Based on previous experience in similar cases, Teachbook will have to change the domain name. In the previous case, ebay had sued the Perfume Bay website for using the word "bay" in its domain name, which eventually changed the domain name to beauty encounter.

Enderle said: "To protect the brand name will have to fight, otherwise one night will be more ' book ' Out." It now appears that Teachbook does not pose any threat to Facebook, but once the company shifts its business, it is likely to be a stumbling block for Facebook in the future. The sooner you start to protect your brand name, the easier it is to protect your own name, especially if the newly created enterprise is small and the funds are scarce. ”

Enderle also hinted that Facebook was not only defending its brand name in a lawsuit against Teachbook, but that the broader implication was that Facebook sent a very clear signal to the market: Who wants to use the name of the company or domain name? Book ', Facebook will resolutely defend its name and fight to the end.

"It's important for Facebook to make other companies and individuals aware of the dangers of violating Facebook's name," Enderle said. The lawsuit will warn other companies not to go the way of Teachbook. ”