Companies which were promised the chance to protect their trade marks from being used as Facebook addresses have been told they can now only do so by signing up for a Facebook page, say lawyers at Pinsent Masons.
When Facebook allowed users to customise web addresses to include their name after the domain name Facebook.com, it said that it was putting protections in place to ensure that trademarks were not used in URLs registered by people who did not own the trademarks, Pinsent Masons lawyers wrote in the firm’s Out-Law.com news service.
Facebook set up a process by which companies could pre-register their trademarks to stop other people using URLs which were made up of the trademarks.
The company has now written to companies who pre-registered, though, and told them that they cannot protect their intellectual property rights unless they put their firms on Facebook.
“When a username is requested for business or promotional needs, we require it to be associated with a Facebook Page,” said an email sent to those who had tried to use the system and reproduced at Out Law.com. “If you have a Page to claim this username, please provide us with the web address (URL) and we will review your request. If you do not already have a Page, simply click on the ‘Create a page’ link under the Sign Up section of www.facebook.com,” it said.
Pinsent Masons says the policy raises the possibility that companies which thought they had protected their brands from Facebook cybersquatting may now lose that protection.
Out-Law.com says Pinsent Masons asked Facebook if trademarks pre-registered by companies that did not want a Facebook presence would become available for registration by third parties, but that the company did not provide an answer.
The firm also asked Facebook if the supposed trademark protection strategy was in fact a marketing exercise designed to encourage companies to register a Facebook presence, but the company declined to respond. It pointed instead to the ‘frequently asked questions’ page related to the URL policy.
John MacKenzie, an intellectual property specialist at Pinsent Masons, said that the policy will not help those companies which choose to stay off Facebook. "This would appear to be brand protection, but with a catch,” he said. “Unless brands have a clear social networking strategy they will not want to incur the time and cost associated with maintaining a Facebook page. What we need is some clarity as to the protection actually offered and the conditions attached.”
