face-book.com

[Whois-Search]

http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/html/2007/d2007-1193.html

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/01/facebook_domain_dispute/

 

[Beasty]

http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/html/2007/d2007-1193.html

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/01/facebook_domain_dispute/

The main lesson here is that if you do no respond to a complaint, you are your own worst enemy.

In this decision the Expert seems to have accepted without challenge some assertions that do not bear up under closer scrutiny. The main one seems to be that the term "facebook" was invented by the social networking site.

A quick look at an online dictionary tells us that is wrong - the networkers got their name from the type of yearbook used in American schools and colleges. Unfortunately for the Respondent, the Panelist was German and not from the US!

Oddly, she seems to have looked at some dictionaries - as she concludes :

Firstly, it is important that the name FACEBOOK (consisting of “face” and “book”) is made up of two common terms in an imaginative manner and can generally not be found in dictionaries. It must therefore be considered as inherently distinctive (this is confirmed by the numerous trademark registrations in English-speaking countries worldwide which do not rely on secondary meaning). The Respondent therefore did not register just any generic domain name.

Yet the terms seems to be in the online dictionaries that I looked at - and is wholly consistent with the original use of the term by thefacebook.com - as they then were - namely to provide an online facebook for students at Harvard.

So, if you are challenged over name, never assume that the Panelist/Expert will get it right without a Response from you.