I work for a small manufacturer and our product brand is a registered trademark. I recently created a facebook fan page and when I went to set a custom facebook fan page shortcut I found out that the name was already taken. What the heck? How can we file a complaint with Facebook so we can recover our trademark and prevent someone else from using it??
I recently experienced a similar situation when I went to set a custom URL shortcut for the Ask Dave Taylor Fan Page on Facebook, just to find that “askdavetaylor” wasn’t available. What the heck? It’s a registered trademark with the US Patent and Trademark Office and no-one else should be snagging it in Facebook land!
To resolve the situation I didn’t register a different URL for my fan page, figuring that they say “it can’t be changed once set” but it doesn’t say anything about whether or not that includes IP ownership disputes.
I went to the Facebook help area (confusingly, it’s the last menu option on Settings) and found myself on a page entitled “What should I do if someone’s username infringes my intellectual property or publicity rights?”, where it says:
“If you wish to report that someone’s username infringes your intellectual property rights, please fill out our username infringement form.”
Complete with a link to the username infringement form.
Click on it and you’ll find this form:
Quite a lot to fill out, take your time and make a clear case. Not sure of your trademark registration number? Go to the USPTO site and do a quick search. The resultant number they seek looks like this:
You can see it in the middle, labelled “Serial Number”. Fill everything in, click “Submit” and you’ll get the following message in your inbox:
The next communication I received from Facebook was within 24 hours – even on Christmas day, of all days! – and it was short and sweet:
And that’s all there was for me to recover use of my “askdavetaylor” trademark on Facebook, and you can see that by trying this link:
http://www.facebook.com/askdavetaylor
My thanksto Facebook for making this so easy. If you don’t get a positive, favorable response, then you’ll at least be in a dialog with someone on the Facebook team and can pursue it further, as needed.
I have been unable to find the IP Infringement Form on Face book – all the links including the one in this article go to a page that asks questions that don’t take you to the form. HELP!
I went to the infringement form link you provided, but it was something about usernames, I didn’t see the form you show us here, please let me know a different URL to it, thanks!
Hi, I’m glad everything worked out for all of you. Someone stole my facebook username; when I informed her of my pending trademark, she took it down, but when I try to claim it, it still say it’s not available, though no one else is using it. Then, worse, the same person (I suspect) changed the username by a letter or 2 and is using my name as her page name, right after this happened. My trademark is still PENDING though, so do I have any rights yet?? Or must I wait for the registration to go through? Thanks for any kind advice in advance!
I found this page when I had a similar situation with facebook. I own the trademark for a name, and someone told me another person started a page for her business with the same name. I used the information I found here, which was a huge relief for me. It took a couple weeks, but facebook just sent me an email saying they removed the other page. Thank you so much for this useful information!
Hi Joann,
Can I ask a question? Would dates matter? Would it matter that the facebook page was created before the trademark was registered?
Thanks,
AQ
Just to clarify, the form asks for the registration number which is different from the serial number.
Can a company own the name of an area or lake??? I recently received a notice that my facebook url had been taken away. facebook.com/lakeconroe but the owner of a local website lakeconroedotcom claim to facebook that he owns the name lakeconroe so therefore facebook removed the name from me. I own a website called lakeconroehousedotcom could I therefore claim to be the owner of the name as well?
The thing that makes me mas about the whole thing is that this facebook name was a personal profile for me and not a promotional one. The new owner is using it to put links of local businesses that he charges a hefty fee to promote on his main website.
Facebook are a disgrace, what is easy for you to obtain, is impossible for those you stole it from to return.
The other day I had an IT consultant steal my username TheViceroy for a client of theirs “the Viceroy restaurant”. When I refused to give it, he used that very option you suggested and STOLE my username. I had used it for over a year and had good reasons for using it, just to have somebody steal it from me without any correspondance from Facebook.
Facebook at least should give the person it originally belongs to appeal !
Dave!!!
It all worked out thanks to your detailed instructions. Facebook took care of the situation very quickly.
I now have http://www.facebook.com/ladybugjane back
Thanks again for your guidance!
Warm regards,
Jane
http://www.ladybugjane.comth
I’m not a lawyer, Jane, but there was no commerce happening. I just have a trademark registered for the name so therefore there was no logical reason Facebook wouldn’t grant me the name. It wasn’t in use, it was reserved by the system, so it’s a slightly different situation. Good luck. Report back to us what happens.
Hi Dave,
Thank you so much for posting your facebook infringement issue and resolution. I found it very helpful.
I contacted my lawyer since facebook/ladybugJane has been taken and I own the federal trademark to ladybug Jane.
My lawyer has not dealt with a facebook issue like this before,but thought it wasn’t infringement until there was some commerce being done using the name?
Was that the case with your trademark name? Or were they just using the name?
I am filling out the form now and wanted to know if the commerce use makes a difference?
Thank you so so much!! Have a beautiful day:)
Jane
Dont get so agitated for crying out loud – I can probably guarantee that your username wasn’t “stolen” and that its just an unfortunate coincidence that someone was using a username before you trademarked it. Effectively, you probably STOLE it from them.
I strongly agree. You should be ashamed of requesting facebook to give you that name when someone else were already using it. What a shame that facebook could easily give urls to someone else. You should have used another url but no, you were too greedy. just because you own a trademark for that name doesnt mean you own the cyberworld too. Don’t be too proud, you STOLE it.
Um, yes, owning a trademark in a domain that includes the online world *does* mean that I own that name on Facebook too. Do you think that Safeway or Starbucks would be fine with someone else owning their trademark?
I understand that trademarks are less clear, since there can be multiple owners of the same “mark”, in different industries. For example, “filepro” is a 4GL software database, a set of hanging file folders, and a manicure device. Then there is “Apple”, which is owned by a record company and a computer company, and which wasn’t a problem until the computer company got into the music business.
Dicslaimer: IANAL.