Social Media Trademark Infringement
Posted by Al Scillitani on May 6, 2008 – 7:26 amSo, what will be the next chapter in social media? Somebody using your trademarked company name as their user and account name.
As many of you know, social media is a hot topic in the online world. What I haven’t seen much of yet, is social media trademark infringement. Not seeing it yet is actually a good thing. Maybe companies have time to secure their name before they get taken. If not, I can see this becoming as big as, or maybe even bigger than, domain name trademark infringement and we all know what a mess that is. All the hoops and costs you have to go through to get your domain name back is crazy.
What to do? Go to Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, and all the other social media sites and sign up using your company name. Even if you don’t use it or even plan to use it, get it! I signed up for twitter.com/alscillitani and then signed up for a company account under the name of the company that I work for.
Once these names start to get taken, I have no idea how you will be able to get the person using it to transfer it over to you. Who’s responsibility will it be to monitor this? Will Twitter shut the person down? Will attorney’s have to get involved? Will it be like domain names and you can send a cease and desist and possibly some money?
Best advice is not to let it happen in the first place. Sign up and get your name and your company name.
If you have other sites you would recommend others go to and sign up for their name, please add in a comment.
2 Responses to “Social Media Trademark Infringement”
hadn’t even thought of that… the last thing you need is someone spamming social networks in your name.
Good call Al.
By Garrett on May 6, 2008
Yep. It will be hard to police this, given the growth of so many new social media sites. Definitely add Wordpress.com, and Blogspot to the list. To be extra safe, grab Tumblr and Jaiku.
By Christy on May 6, 2008