Facebook Delays Timeline Over Court Battle

Social media network Facebook on Monday announced that they would be delaying the widespread release of their new “Timeline” feature until at least Tuesday as they battle over the applications name with online company Timelines.

Timelines is arguing in court that their product name and actual product is very similar to Facebook’s offering and that their product would be “eliminated” if Facebook was to take on the name.

While the judge rejected the request Facebook decided to delay the planned launch for one full day until the case was completely closed.

Speaking about their decision the judge noted that Facebook’s Timeline already has 1.1 million “graph developers” using an earlier version of the timeline application.

The two company’s will meet again on Tuesday for another court date when Timeslines will bring in a top media lawyer to argue their case. The company has a trademark for the word “timeline” and Facebook is arguing that it’s a generic word that should not be privy to trademarked status.

There’s a good chance Timelines will be compensated and Mark Zuckerberg will receive his Timeline name.

Do you think “timeline” is too generic of a word to be trademarked? With Facebook wanting to move forward quickly I doubt the issue will be explored all that much.