Infringement suit filed against Facebook for using the name 'META'

Infringement suit filed against Facebook for using the name 'META'

Justin Bolognino, a small business owner has filed a suit against Facebook for allegedly using his business name 'META'.

The full name of the complainant's business is MetaxLLC and he has sued Facebook for trademark infringement and unfair competition on the grounds that Facebook's use of the Meta brand decimated Bolognino's business.

Bolognino started his small business 12 years ago to create multi-sensory live experiences using virtual and augmented reality for events like Coachella. But according to Bolognino, his business came to a screeching halt, after Facebook's announcement last year.

"[The services we offer] are drastically identical… we have the same goal which is social immersion in virtual spaces," he said.

Dyan Finguerra-DuCharme, Bolognino's attorney and a partner at Pryor Cashman LLP, immediately reached out to Meta Platforms to tell the company it was infringing on her client's intellectual property rights. In pursuant to which the two companies engaged in 8 months of negotiations, however , despite handing over thousands of pages of information to resolve the issue, Meta Platforms would not come to the table, she said.

"We would like to be compensated for our 12 years worth of building a brand so cool and so valuable that one of the biggest companies on Earth and Facebook wanted to steal it from us," Bolognino commented.

The lawsuit however doesn't specify the amount of monetary damages.