Facebook Going After Designbook Because All The Books Are Belong To Them
from the book-it dept
Facebook has long made the silly argument that it has some kind of untoward iron-clad trademark on all things "book." Hell, even the site's user agreement contains a provision that by signing it, you agree that Facebook has a trademark on "book", as though such agreements actually meant anything. And, throughout time immemorial (or at least as long as the site has been popular), Facebook has aggressively pursued trademark claims on anyone who dares to use "book" within their sites' names or company names.
Just in case anyone was wondering, this hasn't stopped. Most recently, Facebook has informed a startup called Designbook of its intention to oppose the startup's trademark application.
"We don’t believe that any of our branding is related to theirs," [co-creator] Pollak said, in an article published yesterday by Boston magazine. "Our logo is completely different, different colors, different fonts."Yes, much like many of the other examples that people tend to cite whenever Facebook decides it's trademark-asshat time, such as phonebooks and scrapbooks, Designbook got its name from a source that has nothing to do with Facebook and isn't going to be confused for Facebook. And, while Lamebook appears to have survived Facebook's bullying, Designbook doesn't have anything like humor and parody to rest on as a defense.
Pollak and Clark say their name was inspired by the design books they used in school. It's a "really specific thing when you're an engineer... It's your prototype book, where you keep track of your projects, your ideas, and your inventions." Facebook hasn't commented on the situation, but Pollak describes it as a case of "trademark extortion and corporate bullying."
And it shouldn't have to. Facebook has no registered trademark for "book" in the social media space. It tries to rely on its claim of an unregistered trademark, but they're full of shit. If such a trademark could get approved, it would have been by now, rather than the claim's most solid standing existing in a EULA. Here's hoping Designbook can fight this once the opposition is filed.
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Filed Under: books, trademark
Companies: designbook, facebook
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Nice title
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Re: Nice title
Facebook Going After Designbook Because All The Books Arrrrrrrrr Belong To Them.
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Re: Nice title
All your book are belong to us
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Makes sense to me
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go read a bunch of ink printed on sheets of paper which is then bound together using adhesives and a slightly thicker piece of paper. If only I could remember what those things were called...
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Re: Makes sense to me
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Re: Makes sense to me
Facepaper
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Randall Munroe of XKCD comic strip fame has a new book, Thing Explainer. In it he uses only the thousand most common English words to explain a variety of interesting things.
This is the future. Soon we'll all be limited to a handful of words not bound by copyright law.
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That's a fascinating problem. I'm imagining a recursive algorithm wrapped around a thesaurus. Maybe there's a perl module for it.
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I suspect the algorithm is that list.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_illiteracy#Remedial_reading
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http://splasho.com/upgoer5/phpspellcheck/dictionaries/1000.dicin
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Is it the name? or the purpose?
So maybe it's about a social networking site called ***book, rather than a deign site called ***book.
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Re: Is it the name? or the purpose?
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Response to: Anonymous Coward on Jun 16th, 2015 @ 12:41am
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Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on Jun 16th, 2015 @ 12:41am
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Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on Jun 16th, 2015 @ 12:41am
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Re: Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on Jun 16th, 2015 @ 12:41am
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Re: Re: Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on Jun 16th, 2015 @ 12:41am
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To Be Fair, They Haven’t Tried To Stop Them Using The Name
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Unfortunately, this is the kind of thing that grows and gets bigger - at least until the next giant blackhole-matrix of vapidity comes along.
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Already tried...
Bell lost.
Today, however, both are becoming obsolete.
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As the father to teen children, I can give a firsthand report: they consider Facebook to be incredibly lame. It's where old farts and companies hang out.
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corporate bullies
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Some Examples of *-book
briefing book [Am politics]
checkbook
codebook [cryptography]
cookbook
databook [electronics, see also datasheet]
deskbook
factbook ['movement' politics tract, often far from factual]
handbook
logbook
passbook
paybook [brit. miltary, simultaneously an ID document and a bankbook for pay]
playbook [football]
tractbook [a small book, designed to be handed out to passers-by, see factbook]
That's all I can think of, off the top of my head. Anyone care to raise me?
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Re: Some Examples of *-book
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Re: Re: Some Examples of *-book
Wars are simultaneously very silly and very serious. That's life. You don't get to choose the game you want to play, but you must do the best you can with the game which chance, or circumstance, or fate, catapults you into.
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One book to rule them all....
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406221
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