Stites & Harbison, PLLC

The well-known social networking site Facebook, announced that starting tomorrow (Saturday, June 13, 2009) users can apply for personalized URLs for their Facebook pages. The personal URL in the form of www.facebook.com/yourname will better direct friends to the user's Facebook profile.  Additionally, those administering Facebook Pages, such as those associated with businesses or public figures, can select a personalized URL for that page.

The availability of personalized URLs creates the added risk that individuals wishing to abuse the procedures may use this opportunity to take advantage of well-known trademarks and brand names.  To reduce ‘username squatting,” Facebook has taken the following steps:

To begin with, only users who had Facebook accounts before this announcement will be eligible to apply.   The personal URLs are also non-transferable, so there is no option for users to sell them for profit.  Finally, Facebook has set up an online procedure which provides trademark owners the ability to record their rights with Facebook and prevent their use by others as personal URLs. 

Facebook has set up a simple online form for rights owners that would like to prevent their trademarks from being registered as usernames by Facebook users.  We encourage all trademark owners to take a few moments to complete this preventive measure and record their marks with Facebook before applications for personal URLs on Facebook go live on Saturday.  Or, if you would rather, we would be more than happy to record your trademark rights for you.

In the event that a third party somehow succeeds in adopting your trademark or brand name as a personal URL on Facebook, please contact us.  In addition to its other options, Facebook now also has a system to deal with suspected infringement, and we can communicate with Facebook to resolve those matters.

Lindsay Yeakel Capps is an Associate in the Louisville office where she is a member of the Intellectual Property & Technology Service Group.