Facebook "Face" Trademark Soon To Be Approved

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All’s fair in love and war … and business. Facebook is close to owning the rights to using and licensing the word “face” on brands and business activities relating to telecommunications and related activities. What will happen to FaceTime now?

The US Patent and Trademark Office has given Facebook a Notice of Allowance, which means it is only a few steps from legally owning the “Face” trademark. It will need to pay the necessary fees within three months. Once this is done, the patent office will publish the trademark grant on its official gazette, and it’s all good for Facebook.

This means that Facebook has legal rights to using (and licensing) the “Face” word in products, services and brands with certain conditions, particularly that these should be for social networking. Some exceptions exist, in particular cars and motoring, but we do wonder why only these particular areas of interest were explicitly excluded.

Also, we wonder what Apple will think of this, as they run FaceTime, which is a telecommunications service and brand. Maybe existing products and services will be grandfathered under the terms of the trademark? Or maybe we’ll be seeing a battle for branding soon.