Nick O'Neil at AllFaceBook reports that an author of a book about the "social networks" that sprung up around Harvard's House System (each of their dorms is a self-contained house with cafeteria, etc, even their own intramural rowing team, actually) and had registered "Facebook" as a trademark with USPTO.
Now, he's canceling it, since as O'Neil reports,
Actually, Nick, registration with USPTO is a big deal. If the trademarks had been registered around the same time, there would be a serious legal problem (IANAL). On the other hand, "Facebook" is a widely used term. I had a "Badger Facebook" my freshman year at Wisconsin. Nick is probably right. This smacks of a publicity stunt and should be ignored. I'm not sure why he's even reviewing the guy's book.Is this a way to build buzz for his upcoming book release? Possibly. So far there has been no legal action taken by Aaron Greenspan aside from a filing to the U.S. PTO which is really not much of an action, it is instead more of a statement then anything else. It will be difficult for Greenspan to file any sort of suit following the launch of his book since it could be argued that the suit is being used for promotional purposes.
