Trademark Misuse in Facebook, Twitter, and Other Social Media Names

Most by now are familiar with cybersquatting, which is the term used to refer to the bad faith registration and/or use of a third party’s trademark in a domain name.  However, a new form of trademark misuse is rapidly growing.  Whether you want to call it cybersquatting, brandjacking, or some other term, entities are now registering third party trademarks as names on Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking sites.  It appears that the protection offered by these social networking sites are insufficient to redress such trademark misuse, as noted in a recent article titled Trademark Owners Beware: Cybersquatting Spreads to Twitter.  Moreover, the UDRP does not currently apply to situations like this.  As such, trademark owners are left to rely upon common law and federal Lanham Act trademark law.