Does Facebook have exclusive rights for “book”?

As it became known, Facebook is now suing a professional community for teachers that operates a social networking site for teachers, Teachbook. The website for teachers is accused of unfair usage of the word “book” in its name that creates a strong competition for Facebook.  Sounds weird, doesn’t it?

The beginning of the suit reads:

Facebook has become a worldwide social, cultural and political phenomenon. With fame comes imitation. Here, Defendant Teachbook.com LLC rides on the coattails of the fame and enormous goodwill of the FACEBOOK trademark. Misappropriating the distinctive BOOK portion of Facebook's trademark, Defendant has created its own competing online networking community in a blatant attempt to become Facebook "for Teachers." Despite Facebook's protests, Defendant has willfully and deliberately persisted in its misappropriation of the Facebook brand, forcing Facebook to protect its user community and the strength of the Famous FACEBOOK trademark through this action.

In an effort to prove the exclusive rights for the word “book ”, Facebook drops the following stats:

• Facebook has over 500 million active users                                 
• Those users spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook.com.
• Facebook is the second most trafficked site in the U.S.
• Over 150 million Facebook users also engage with FB through third-party sites each month
• Over a million sites have implemented tools Facebook makes available
•  Through Facebook, users can interact with over 900 million objects (individual and community pages, groups, and events) and 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.).

That’s why, Facebook  has a firm belief no one else is  able to use the word "book" in the name.

This suit comes at a time when Facebook is becoming much more integrated with not only the web, but the real world as well.