Facebook has countersued a Chicago company called Timelines.com, which first sued Facebook over its new Timeline feature for redesigned profiles.
Timelines.com is a website which lets users make scrapbooks of moments in history. It sued Facebook after it introduced its new Timeline feature, which structures a Facebook user’s life story on their profile.
The site claimed Facebook’s new feature would eliminate it and cause customer confusion between the two services. A court granted it a temporary order to block Facebook from rolling out the service, which is only beginning to appear on user profiles now.
paidContent reports Facebook has now countersued Timelines.com, asking the court to strip it of its trademarks. It believes the word “Timeline” is far too generic to be trademarked, saying it’s used as a description.
It’s not the first time Facebook has fought legal battles over naming. It sued parody website Lamebook and teachers’ community website Teachbook for their use of the “-book” suffix.
