Above the Law knows its clientele. Whether you’re a budding 0L or the next partner about to be the subject of a Kathryn Rubino article, I’d bet that your time is limited.
Because I care, allow me to give a summary of this article before I delve into the nitty gritty.
SpongeBob wants to be Meta, Patrick wants to be Meta, and they’re fighting over it. Okay, that’s the article, thank you for time. Tip your waiters! And don’t harass them.
Now that just the people with attention spans longer than the average TikTok video are left, let’s get into the claims at hand.
An installation-art company called META (or Meta.is) announced Tuesday that it will be suing Meta (or Facebook) for trademark violation, alleging that Zuckerberg’s name change violated the smaller company’s established brand.
“On October 28, 2021, Facebook seized our META mark and name, which we put our blood, sweat, and tears into building for over twelve years,” reads a post on the smaller company’s site. “Today, after eight months of trying to negotiate with Facebook in good faith to no avail, we were left with no choice but to file a lawsuit against them.”
…
Much of the case hinges on Facebook’s many privacy scandals, which Meta.is argues has made it impossible to share the name. “Meta can no longer provide goods and services under the META mark,” the complaint argues, “because consumers are likely to mistakenly believe that Meta’s goods and services emanate from Facebook and that Meta is associated with the toxicity that is inextricably linked with Facebook.”
Meta.is may have a damned good point — even Facebook’s name change to Meta happened amidst being accused of misinformation and other goodies. Facebook has faced a couple of antitrust suits, been a channel for spreading abortion misinformation, spreading hate speech, and who knows what else. I too have felt the Highlander urge in my own time. I’m okay with being confused with Christopher Williams — hell, I’d even take Christopher Wallace. But if my (relatively) good name got mixed up with Christopher Wilder, I’d be doing my best to break associative ties too. Woe to any and all small companies that are unjustly confused with a tech leader that may have more than a small role in dismantling democracy.
While I do not know the outcome of the intellectual property case, I know for damned sure that when I hear “Meta,” I don’t think of this website.
A Company Called Meta Is Suing Meta For Naming Itself Meta [The Verge]
Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s. He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.
