Intellectual Property Law

INTA Announcement on Facebook 'Landrush'

By Marty Schwimmer

Just received a 'broadcast' email from INTA about the upcoming Facebook "landrush' on personalized URLs. I think that this is sorta unusual: other than in the context of domain names, I can't recall INTA taking a proactive stance on a 'private' matter before this. Could be wrong:

Dear INTA Member:

The International Trademark Association would like to inform you of a recent development regarding the use of trademarks on social networking websites.

On Tuesday, June 9, Facebook, Inc., a social networking website company based in the United States, publicly announced that beginning Saturday, June 13th at 12:01 a.m. U.S. EDT, users of the Facebook website will be allowed for the first time to create personalized URLs for their Facebook pages (facebook.com/yourname).

Facebook, Inc. has created an online form for rights owners interested in preventing their trademarks from being registered as usernames by Facebook users.

Trademark owners can reserve their trademark on the Facebook platform by submitting relevant information to Facebook, Inc. through their trademark protection contact form, available at http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=username_rights.

If you have further questions or concerns, please contact Facebook directly or see its Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page, available at http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=896.

Thank you.

Full post as published by Trademark Blog on June 10, 2009 (boomark / email).