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.

Protecting Your Trademark is Protecting Your Goodwill

Do I Really Need to Worry About my Trademark? Ask eBoost Consulting « The Legal Satyricon

eBoost Media and eBoost Consulting are both search engine optimization companies that operate out of California. Same field, same business, very similar names, even similar addresses. Now that one company is at the center of a viral internet story about the worst customer service ever, the other company is distraught and doing damage control.

Despite all the negative attention, “eBoost Consulting is guilty of nothing more than being careless about defending its trademark.” (source)

Technorati Tags: cybersquatting, trademark, good will

What is Trademark Infringement, Cybersquatting, Dilution? Check out Citizen Media Law Project Legal Guide

Citizen Media Law Project's Legal Guide now has a resource for trademark and cybersquatting.

CMLP Launches New Legal Guide Section on Intellectual Property | Citizen Media Law Project

# Trademark Infringement: Trademark infringement happens when you use a trademark owner's trademark or a similar mark in a way that is likely to confuse the public into believing that the trademark owner is the source or sponsor of your products or services. This is the most common type of trademark claim, and it effectuates trademark's primary purpose of avoiding consumer confusion. See What Trademark Covers for details.

# Trademark Dilution: Trademark dilution happens when you use a trademark owner's famous trademark in a way that is likely to weaken its capacity to identify the trademark owner's goods or services or to tarnish the wholesomeness of the mark. The trademark owner need not show that you created consumer confusion, and dilution may occur even if your goods or services are completely different from the trademark owner's. Because of dilution law, it's probably not a good idea to call a blog "Kodak News" or "McDonald's Blog," unless it is actually about Kodak or McDonald's (in which case you should read Using the Trademarks of Others carefully). For details on trademark dilution, see What Trademark Covers.

# Cybersquatting: Cybersquatting happens when you register, use, or sell a domain name with the intent to profit from someone else's trademark. Congress passed the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act in 1999 to stop speculators from buying up multiple domain names and selling them at exorbitant prices to the legitimate owners of the associated trademarks. If your use of a trademark owner's trademark in a domain name does not fit this stereotypical model, you should be able to avoid cybersquatting liability. For details, see the Cybersquatting section.

Technorati Tags: Trademark Infringement, Cybersquatting, Dilution

Domain Name URL Does Not Infringe Trademark

The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled in Interactive Products Corporation v a2z Mobile Office Solutions, Inc., that the presence of a trademark in a web page's URL post-domain path does not violate federal trademark law.