4 ms·
Ask HN: Has 'facebook' become an un-genericized trademark?
We're all familiar with genericized trademarks -- terms that once were trademarks but have become the generic term for a certain product, like aspirin and escalator.
I'm wondering whether the word "facebook" -- which was once the generic term for a directory of names and faces -- has become the reverse: an un-genericized trademark.
I would define an un-genericized trademark as a term that is so strongly associated with a particular product (in this case, the social networking website Facebook) that anyone who encounters it assumes you're talking about the particular product, rather than the generic term.
This has practical consequences. Typically, a company can't exclusively claim the right to use a word that it did not create; in the case of "facebook," the term had been in use well before Facebook's founding.
But might Facebook be able to claim that "facebook" has become un-genericized, and thus argue that no other site or product should be able to use the term?
What do you think, HN?
- michael_dorfman 16y agoIn my experience, the generic term was "face book" (two words) but that could vary geographically. (Actually, where I went to school, it was known as the "frog book"-- don't ask.)
- jasonlotito 16y agoNot in the original context, but in the realm of social networks, it's trademarked. Apple and Windows are good examples of this. I can start a company called Apple Miniatures and sell plastic miniature of soldiers, but I'd have trouble starting a company called Apple Computers. You seem to make the case for this as well: "the social networking website Facebook" as opposed to the other facebook, which was commonly an actual book of pictures. IANAL