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Comment by mlinsey | Hacker News Reader

Regardless of whether or not the "he stole my idea" story is real, I do think that he may have a good case that "Facebook" isn't trademarkable. When I arrived at college the year before Facebook the site launched, we received a dead-tree book at orientation that was called a "Facebook", and they had been a tradition there and at many other schools for a while. While Apple can trademark their logo, they can't trademark the word "Apple".

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Ah, except they can trademark the word "Apple" in reference to the sales of computers. A trademark is not just a word, but a word paired with a market.

As I recall from some marketing class or other - to use a concrete word like Apple, it can't be indicative of the product's function. So the use of the name Apple for a computer company doesn't in any way restrict other companies from entering that market. But naming something after the offline function that it implements - that does affect other companies trying to enter that market.

I.e. if instead of Apple they'd chosen PC Computers - it likely would not have been a valid trademark. And if you were an apple producer and tried to call yourself Apple Inc., sorry that's no good either.

IANAL, obviously.

At my college we had "Faces and Places" a.k.a the "Meet Book" otherwise known as the "Meat Book." I don't remember it specifically called the "Face Book" but I don't think it's a stretch to think that kids at many other schools would have called it that.

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