Facebook Is Suing Teachbook.com The Teachers Social Media Website

[morestar]

Well, this is a first for me. I've never really noticed any news over the years of Facebook suing any one or company but today it's official - Facebook has wrangled itself into the field of lawsuits against the teacher's social media website called TeachBook (http://www.teachbook.com/).

According to an article by Chris Crum on WebProNews.com, Facebook sues Teacher Resource (http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/08/26/facebook-sues-teacher-resource-for-using-the-word-book) for using 'book' in their name.

I'm not sure what to make of this. From where I stand, if this case were to sway in favour of Facebook most people in most countries would be forbidden to register and use domains with the word 'book' in them for social media purposes.

What I found interesting was that a few of the footer links on Teachbook.com were dead. The site isn't even done yet and as of Thursday morning the site had a total of 47 people online - not much competition but I guess big businesses like to look ahead and be prepared...

My take? Facebook won't win in court and will buy Teachbook.com out. I could be wrong.

;)

[wige]

My guess is that this would probably be settled out of court, but it is an interesting situation. Looking at the site, they seem to clearly be a social networking site, but I don't see a particular reason why the name has the word book in it. For Facebook, the simple argument that no other site of that type had a name like that, so the name was, at the time, novel, (no pun intended) would work. But for Teachbook, the number one competitor in the overall social media space having a similarly structured name means that same argument wouldn't work for them. Unless they can come up with an argument better than "it sounds like our competitor's name" they would probably lose in court. I've seen it happen with search tools that played on the Google name, video sharing sites that played on the YouTube name, and many other cases. Anything that could potentially be seen as a link between companies is risky.

[weegillis]

There could be no hiding that Teach____ is riding on the coattails of FB. How this faux pas passed under the radar doesn't say much for the site owners and creators.

[morestar]

I'm not convinced just yet as it seems that if Facebook wins this they'd pretty much have a monopoly on any domain with book in it if it had anything remotely to do with social networking. No?

[mjtaylor]

Wasn't Toy 'R Us able to prevail against other 'R Us add on names?

[Social-Media]

If Facebook does not have a trademark on teachbook and did not mention in their original trademark that they were covering other social media domains that end in book, I don't really see that Facebook has a leg to stand on.

1) Book is a VERY common term and has been used at the end of countless domain names long before even facebook arrived on the sceen.
2) Book is an educational tool that is commonly used by every teacher to "teach". LOL

I don't think they have a legal leg to standon. They are just hoping the teachbook guys will crumble to avoid spending the dollars to defend themselves.

By that same logic, they should be able to prevent anyone from ever having a social media site that starts with "Face". So FaceOfMankind or FaceOfTheWorld might be prohibited... which I think is TOTAL BS.

[Cigtina23]

I think FB is over reacting with this issue. Honestly I can't see a
reason why they have to sue TB (using face or book on the URL
of a social networking site is not a big issue right?) they are of different
category and to think that FB has a lot of visitor compare to it. It was
like there is a big difference in their marketing.