Back in September last year, Facebook was sued by Timelines.com for allegedly infringing the latter’s trademark right over the word “Timeline” in introducing the Facebook Timeline feature. Timelines.com is a website that allows users to record and share events, personal, public or historical. Timelines.com claimed that such infringement would eliminate its business due to consumer confusion. Today, the two companies laid out a schedule of due dates for preliminary legal proceedings, signaling the forthcoming trial or settlement in the near future.
Following the filing of the suit, Facebook fought back by claiming that not only is Facebook not infringing on any trademark, but that the Timeline trademark owned by Timeline.com is invalid because it’s too generic. Facebook argued that “Timeline” is a commonly used work, and granting trademark rights to the use of such word is unreasonable. Timelines.com requested a temporary restraining order stopping Facebook from incorporating its Timeline feature. The court denied the motion partly because the trademark is “descriptive”, the lowest level of distinctiveness aside from “generic”, which warrants very little or no protection.
Descriptive terms ordinarily are not protectable as trademarks under the Lanham Act. They may, however, become valid marks by acquiring a secondary meaning in the minds of the consuming public. To succeed in maintaining the validity of the trademark, Timelines.com would have to demonstrate such secondary meaning. However, it is highly unlikely that Timelines.com will be able to produce enough evidence to show that when consumers think of timelines on the internet, they think of Timelines.com. Although Timelines.com has significant number of monthly visits, for those millions of people out there who are not Timelines.com users, the word “Timeline” simply means timeline that is not associated with any particular commercial entity. Timelines.com is most certainly aware of the weakness of their claims, and is very likely to settle with Facebook prior to the trial.