FOUNDATION OF FACEBOOK

“Creating something different and new always comes up with the doubts and criticism, but when it gets successful, all these become worthy of”.

This quote seems so correct for the Facebook. When it came, then that was a different idea, it was an innovative step of connecting the people, not only through the messages, but also through various new features like sharing photographs, sharing their locations etc. Facebook has lived a long journey and its popularity has increased day-by-day. As of 2020, Facebook emerged as the largest social media platform with 2.6 billion monthly active users worldwide. India itself consists of 320 million users of Facebook which makes it the leading country in terms of Facebook audience size.

Facebook was founded in February 2004 in Cambridge, Massachusetts before moving to Palo Alto, California. This was relocated to Sun Microsystems Campus in Menlo Park in 2011. Before becoming available to the general public, its membership was limited to Harvard College students and then to certain Ivy League Schools.  

THE GROWTH OF FACEBOOK

Beginning with The Facebook: On February 2004, Mark Zukerberg with some of his classmates launched The Facebook, a website. It was the one which used to connect people through social networks at colleges. This used to greet its visitors back then, by making them understand that this will help them “search people at their schools, find out the classmates, to check up their friend’s friends and have a look at their social network.” This was confined to the Harvard Campus at first.

1. From 0 to 1 million registered users:  The website quickly gained the popularity when it was there at Harvard Campus, but after the popularity, it was subsequently moved out to other colleges. By the end of 2004 only, it gained more than 1 million registered users. This opened its way to Silicon Valley and also made it gain investment of $500,000 from co-founder of PayPal[1].
2. Coming of Facebook: In 2005, The Facebook changed its name to “Facebook” and thereafter they tried planning for opening it to the general public. In 2006, this social networking site opened for the general public and rest is history.       
3. Touching the mark of popularity worldwide: Facebook started earning more and more users. Its popularity started making its presence among the public worldwide. Within three years only after it became available to the general public, it added 350 million users and in 2012, it came up with the success of getting 1 million users and became one of its kind to do the same. Now with 2.6 billion monthly active users, its still ruling among all the social networking sites.

CREDITS TO IPR IN THE GROWTH OF THE FACEBOOK

• Facebook has a number of Intellectual Property Rights. Since it itself has the foundation of   Intellectual Property, therefore saving it is the foremost goal of the Facebook. The only assets of Facebook are Intellectual Property- designs, computer algorithms(process of business) and talent.
• Facebook is also in litigation dealing with copyrights, trademarks, patents and most importantly ownership of the company as well.
• In 2012, Facebook was having 73 active trademarks consisting of “Facebook” and similar words like it.
• Facebook has a total of 1317 patents in U.S.
• Facebook has numerous copyrights as well and it also has a copyright strikes system[2]. One cannot monitor the number of strikes it has active without paying attention manually.

PATENT

As discussed above, Facebook has a total of 1317 patents in U.S. The name “Facebook” itself granted patent in U.S. in 2010. Though Facebook came into existence in 2004 only, but it got its first patent grant for the patent application which Facebook filed itself was in 2012. This was the first patent application filed by the Facebook in 2006.This patent was titled as “Dynamically generating a privacy summary”[3].

• Before this, Facebook has already acquired 18 patents from Friendster (immediate predecessor to Facebook and MySpace). Friendster sold its patents which were critical for social networking to Facebook before shutting down its business in U.S. Since 2007, Facebook has acquired the patents of many companies including Friendster which were critical for Facebook to grow its business in this field.
• Facebook in 2012 also grabbed a deal of acquiring patents, when it bought AOL Patents from Microsoft. Facebook bought 650 patents which constituted a major chunk of the patents acquired by the Facebook.
• In 2015, Facebook again got the key of a luxurious box and it got this patented. Facebook  in 2015 got the patent named  ‘SmartUpLegal’ which allowed creditors to assess the creditworthiness of a person based on the credit ratings of the members of the person’s social network. This gave Facebook new way to gather more personal data of Facebook users. 
• In 2017, Facebook got patent in India for creating the content which was relationship based.
• In 2019, Facebook was awarded with 989 patents which put it higher on the list of Intellectual Property Owners Association. That was 64% higher than in 2018
• The patents of Facebook clearly demonstrate that how much Facebook is spending on research and development. This expenditure is having the long time return in future.

Famous Patents of Facebook:

1. Most of the patents of Facebook are in data processing and digital transmission fields.
2. Some of its patents are in the Optical Elements.
3. Compact head-mounted display for artificial reality:- This is also a famous patent of Facebook. Facebook has been trying hard to make its place stronger by investing more and more in R&D.

CASE LAWS RELATED TO THE PATENT INFRINGEMENT OF FACEBOOK:-

1. BlackBerry V. Facebook[4]

In 2018, Facebook was sued by BlackBerry on the offense that Facebook was using the inventions of the BlackBerry in its messaging applications. Later Facebook also accused BlackBerry of patent infringement and filed a suit related to it. Facebook accused BlackBerry violating its 6 patents titled ‘Voice Instant Messaging’, ‘GPS Management System’ etc and also addressed that the patents which BlackBerry saying its own and accusing Facebook for its violation are invalid. The Court found those patents invalid too.

But later these two settled their disputes.    

PROTECTING SOFTWARE AND WEBSITES UNDER INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS | COPYRIGHT OR PATENT | TO KNOW MORE, VISIT -

TRADEMARKS

• Logging into the Facebook account of a user, they agree that “ they will not be using the copyrights or trademarks of the Facebook, which includes Facebook, the Facebook and F logos, Poke, Wall, Face, Book or any other confusingly similar marks except its being used by expressed permission by the Brand Usage Guidelines or with prior written permission of Facebook.
• One is not even allowed to use the word “Book” without checking by the lawyers at Facebook if one is basically logged it into the Facebook. Facebook even trademarked this basic word, though this is not a registered one yet in U.S. But Facebook pursued infringement of its copyright on this word.
• The registered trademark of Facebook Inc. is ‘Facebook’.

CASE LAWS RELATED TO TRADEMARK OF FACEBOOK

1. Facebook V. Placebook[5]:-  Facebook sued a startup travel website named Placebook for using its trademark ‘Book’, which Facebook claims to be its trademark. Ultimately Facebook shut down this startup travel website because of this.
2. Facebook  V. Teachbook[6]:-  Facebook again filed a suit against a teacher and student site called Teachbook. This company agreed finally to Facebook and adopted a new name called TeachQuest and then Facebook dropped its suit.
3. Facebook V. Facebake[7] :-   Delhi High Court put a restriction on a bakery from using the ‘FACEBAKE’ as its mark. Facebook has filed the trademark infringement suit against the same. Court had this view that its required to grant the interim relief to the Facebook. If its not granted, it will impact the legal rights and business interests of Facebook.

Facebook is always consistent in saving its trademarks as those really define the brand named ‘Facebook’ and for saving its trademarks, it has always been authoritative as well which is visible in the abovementioned case laws.

COPYRIGHTS

• As stated above in the trademarks, Facebook restricts people from using its copyrights which includes the same as of trademarks like Facebook, the Facebook, F logos, FB, Face etc mentioned above or anything similar to that without its written permission.

• All the cases laws which we dealt with trademarks show the copyright infringement by the third party by using the mark which consists of ‘Book’, ‘Face’, in which Facebook has its copyright.
• Facebook also protects the copyright of people. Facebook makes it clear under its Terms of Service and Community Standards that one can only post the content on Facebook which is not violating the Intellectual Property Rights of others. The content being posted on Facebook by someone should not violate the copyright law.

CONCLUSION

Facebook has made its mark by its constant efforts and these efforts it saved in the form of Intellectual Property Rights. Its success, its earnings, its expenditure in the innovations, research and development shows how worthy it is for the Facebook to have these Intellectual Property Rights and save these from being infringed. Its revenue is expected as $17.74 billion for the first quarter as per the survey conducted by Refinitiv in 2020 and this consists of a huge share of the Intellectual Property Rights Facebook possesses.

The success story of Facebook is enough to state that ‘How important the Intellectual Property Rights are’ for the success of a business.

BY- URVASHI SINHA