Facebook Adds Trade Mark Protection To Vanity URL Plan

UPDATED: Social networking site Facebook has put trade mark protections in place ahead of a move this weekend to allow users to register URLs for their profile pages. One trade mark expert has said that the measures are more than adequate.

The company will allow users to register any name they like after the main Facebook address, such as: www.facebook.com/nike. This raises the prospect of individuals registering names that are trade marked to companies or organisations.

The company has put in place a pre-registration process by which companies can list their trade marks and bar others from registering them as names before registration begins.

Trade mark owners can fill in a form listing the marks that they want barred from registration. If a name has already been taken by the time the company finds out, they can fill in an IP infringement form that alerts Facebook to the problem.

"[We want] to help our users avoid potential disputes concerning usernames that may be protected by intellectual property rights," said a company explanation of its actions on its website. "In order to do that, we have encouraged rights owners to contact us if they want to reserve/protect certain names."

John MacKenzie, an intellectual property specialist at Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind OUT-LAW.COM, said that Facebook's actions were a sensible response to an obvious problem.

"Facebook is one of the world's biggest communities, with a growing commercial community," he said. "Increasingly consumers will look to those communities for reviews of products and even to buy products."