Facebook Tries to Secure Trademark for the Term “Book”
After successfully getting the trademark for common, generic words ‘Face’ and ‘Book’ in the United States nearly 13 years ago, Facebook, one of the leading social media giants is presently attempting to accomplish the same in Europe. Seeking to secure the word ‘Book’ under Trademark Protection, the social media giant applied for the same in the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) in June 2019. At present, the Trademark Application submitted to the EUIPO is under examination, with a decision expected later. The reason behind trademarking such generic words is to protect established brands from businesses that might deal in offering similar products and services under similar names, thus misleading the consumers and potentially taking the brands’ revenue. The list Facebook provided in its application emphasizes a voluminous range of products and services, including things from electronic game software to wearable peripherals for computers, software for modifying photographs, and electronic radio components. If the application gets approved, the term ‘book,’ which originally referred to an archaic paper-based data storage format, will soon join the words such as Face, Like, Wall, Poke, the letter F, and a particular shade of blue in the long list. Besides,