Hacker News Reader

Comment by Confusion | Hacker News Reader

Downvoted, because you're completely ignoring the point, which is that 'anyone' is allowed use the letters FB just fine, except for people that make an app that modifies Facebook or is similarly involved with Facebook. Just repeating your point of view doesn't engage the arguments levelled against you.

View on HN

Shouldn't those other 20 developers using FB in their chrome extension on the chrome web store also get the same lawsuit? I feel like this developer might be singled out, since it directly reduces facebook's profits by removing sponsored stories, ads, etc.

AFAIK, Facebook is legally entitled to being as inconsistent as they want to be, allowing companies they like to use 'FB', while suing companies they don't like. They are entitled to single out developers that encroach on their territory.

Now the morality of this behavior is an entirely different discussion...

Aren't you at risk of losing some of the scope of your trademark if you do not consistently enforce it?

Yes.

That's true for copyrights and patents, but NOT trademarks. The latter are in a "defend it or lose it" regime.

FWIW, I believe that it is more "you can lose it if you lose control of it"; just because you haven't enforced it is not a big deal if the people you haven't enforced it against are sufficiently small that they wouldn't have been noticed in a wide enough audience to undermine your trademark.

(In essence, the argument is not a technical one: it is only interesting in that it changes the dynamics of "could someone have been confused"; if people see the word "Facebook" as a moniker on products all the time that are not made by Facebook, then clearly they are not going to be confused by any individual one.)

I sort of agree: You don't automatically lose anything. But once you sue to enforce your trademark, the court looks at the body of evidence - and may determine that the trademark has been diluted and has been lost. There is no AFAIK predefined threshold (or way to measure, for that matter) the dilution of trademark - a different judge/jury may reach different conclusions.

And basically, that's why most trademark lawyers will act on even the smallest unauthorized trademark use - they do not want to leave it to chance.

Facebook has been contacting other developers. I know one of them. They aren't singling this guy out.

Of course, new chrome extensions can pop up faster than FB's legal department can respond, so the mere existence of other people that haven't been caught yet is not evidence of selective enforcement.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com