Trademark Dispute over Facebook’s Name Change to “Meta”
Meta Pcs is a computer gaming company in the US that has launched legal action against Facebook for trademark infringement.
Mark Zuckerberg announced plans to change Facebook’s name to “Meta” as a result of its perceived growth in areas of technology that do not yet exist. This doesn’t affect the social networking app which it claims to remain with the same name.
The reason for the rebranding Facebook says is to ultimately create a virtual world which it believes will eventually replace mobiles and other technology that we currently use.
Meta Pcs trademarked their brand name around a year before Facebook announced its plan to change its name. As both parties enter a trademark war the loopholes in US copyright law may mean that Facebook will still be able to acquire rights through its use of the name “Meta”.
As Facebook is one of the largest tech companies and its prominence on a global scale will likely push out any competitors already using a similar name. The problem for smaller organisations is that it takes a significant amount of time and money to build up goodwill in a name and any hard work could be lost as Facebook takes over.
Meta Pcs also released a video statement similar to Facebook where it announced its name change to “Facebook” in an attempt to show the tech giant that it is prepared to go all the way in protecting its trademark.
On the other hand, it’s good news for Canadian firm “Meta” which saw a sharp rise in its share price as people flocked to invest following the announcement.
This is another impact of trademark infringement as it causes confusion over the two entities which the Canadian firm will likely be hoping that it does not enter into legal action over the profits made arguably attributed to Facebook’s ranking as a tech giant.
