“Facebook has delayed the launch of a controversial new ‘timeline’
feature after a lawsuit was filed against the site by a rival.
Website Timeslines.com sued Facebook a week after the site
announced the new feature, saying it ‘infringes’ its trademarks
and would drive people away from the smaller site.
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the new
profile page had been designed so that, ‘you can tell the whole
story of your life on a single page’.
Meanwhile, Timelines.com describes itself as an online location
where people can ‘record, discover and share history. It’s history
recorded by the people, for the people.’
In the lawsuit, filed in Chicago, the site claims that Facebook’s
Timeline feature ‘infringes on Timelines’ federally registered
trademarks in that it causes confusion as to the source of the
services offered to users of the Internet.’
While the court rejected a request from Timelines.com to bar
Facebook from rolling out the feature, the site has delayed rolling
it until October 6. It was meant to have gone live on September
29.” - Bentley, P. (2011)
Analysis
Again similarly to Apples case, trademarking title was the infringement
for Timelines.com. I think Timelines.com were jealous and
they were simply trying to get some money from Facebook by using
quite daft reason. From my point of view it would of been quite
silly for the court to accept this request as Facebook wouldn’t use
their new feature to humiliate Timelines.com. At the end of the
day there is always something that could be potentially infringemental.
I think this case could go either way. I think that the 2 ideas are very similar and there could be good reason for Timeline to claim infringement on Facebook's 'Timeline' feature. However not all good ideas are original and I think it comes down to the larger company taking precendence over the smaller one. Ii will always be difficult for a smaller company to take on a larger industry giant and win. Bet Timeline wishes there was a dislike button :)
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