Meta Wins Trademark Battle Over New Logo
Meta Platforms Inc, rebranded from Facebook Inc in October 2021, has beaten back accusations that its blue 'infinity' logo is plagiarised.
Blockchain non-profit organisation Dfinity Foundation’s lawsuit, which alleged that Meta’s logo could cause consumer confusion with its own logo, was thrown out by a San Francisco federal court on Thursday 9 November. US District Judge Charles Breyer found that the logos’ differing designs and target audiences were sufficient to avoid confusion.
Breyer also gave Dfinity permission to amend its lawsuit.
Facebook rebranded as Meta in 2021 to reflect its new focus on the ‘metaverse’. Its new logo is intended to represent both the letter ‘M’ and an infinity sign, symbolising the metaverse as promising infinite horizons.
Dfinity owns federal trademarks for two logos reminiscent of infinity symbols, representing an ‘infinite’ public blockchain network used to host smart contracts. These trademarks comprise a multicoloured ‘rainbow’ logo and another featuring Dfinity’s nname without a specified colour.
In his comments on 9 November, Breyer said that Dfinity had not shown it had actually used its uncoloured logo in commerce and that its rainbow variant was not sufficiently similar to Meta’s to carry the lawsuit.
