StartUpToFinish

If you’ve logged into your Facebook account within the last 48 hours or so, chances are you’ve already seen and read the following message:

What this means is that instead of the randomly
assigned digital number that previously designated a Facebook user’s
home page, their chosen name will become part of the URL, making it
easier for anyone to search not only on Facebook, but also through
Google and other search engines.

A welcome initiative, to say the least, but as explained below by two intellectual property attorneys from Morrison & Foerster, LLP,
Facebook’s move raises some interesting trademark issues for brand
owners. Chief among them, according to Morrison & Foerster’s Kate
Fazzini, is the prospect that cyber-squatters may be able to register
business names for their own use, particularly as profile names are
being handed out on first-come, first-served basis.

Morrison & Foerster attorneys Lynn Humphreys and Cathleen Stadecker
note that companies or groups with trademarked names can block
squatters and interlopers from using their brands by following online
registration protocols that Facebook has set up – though they caution, “It remains to be seen exactly how Facebook will evaluate the validity of particular requests for protection.”

The attorneys also point out that Facebook has “explicitly reserved the right to remove and/or reclaim any user name at any time, for any reason.” All well and good, but the lawyers add it remains unclear “how individual infringement claims relating to user names will be processed and resolved.”

And
while Facebook has a policy in place that user names cannot be
transferred or sold, as often happens with online domain names, “The system may still be abused by users who select names that potentially infringe on trademark rights.”

In
short, the two attorneys note that under Facebook’s new profile
options, what’s in a name may not be so simple as what’s in a number.