Social Network Seeks 'Face' Time at Trademark Office

Image via CrunchBaseThe U.S. Patent & Trademark Office has issued a notice of allowance on Palo Alto, Calif.-based social media giant Facebook's December 2005, application to the USPO to trademark the word face.

Facebook must cough up a $100 fee to USPO and may either request up to a 36-month extension or prove within the next six months that it uses the face trademark, according to a report by the Canadian Broadcast Corp. News. In filing a statement of use, Facebook would have to show that beyond the use of the word in its domain name, that it actually employs face on products in commerce, according to the TechCrunch Web site. No opposition was filed to the Facebook proposed trademark.

Were face to be trademarked,  Facebook would  be unable to restrict the use of the term in ordinary commerce unrelated to Facebook's business of providing telecommunications services, such as chat rooms and electronic bulletin boards, according to a Daily Mail story.  It remains to be seen whether face, a generic term, will be trademarked.

Facebook is not one to play favorites among its syllables, and has recently gone on the warpath against entities that use book in their name. Online teacher community Teachbook.com, for example, was targeted by Facebook recently in a trademark infringement lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California (Facebook, Inc. v. Teachbook.com, LLC, Case No. CV10-03654).

'Trademark, Registered Trademark

Image via WikipediaJames Bond aficionados remember the scene in Dr. No (1962) in which Q and M admonish Agent 007 and force him to relinquish his Beretta handgun in exchange for the more powerful Walther PPK 7.65 millimeter firearm ("with a delivery like a brick through a plate-glass window").

Thanks to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, the PPK is now a registered trademark, though still not quite as famous as Sean Connery. The USPTO initially was lukewarm to the gun maker's application to register James Bond's Weapon of Choice, which was submitted along with movie posters and news media references, to make the case that the weapon had its own aura and mystique.

The deal was sealed, however, after the manufacturer provided the results of a blind Internet survey of current or prospective handgun owners, age 18 and older. Roughly 54 percent of those queried identified the PPK handgun, many of whom cited 007 in their response. That led the USPTO trademark and trial board to conclude the weapon's design possessed the requisite distinctiveness to warrant trademark protection.

Wonder if this will give George Lazenby any ideas?  As Bond might quip: "It's worth a shot."