Trademark Protection And Facebook User Names

Trademark protection just got slightly more complicated, but in a good way. There's now a new step that trademark holders should take to protect their trademarks or service marks.

You probably already know that registering domain names corresponding to your marks gives you important practical protection. Now Facebook has entered the equation. Users are now able to register a Facebook user name on a first-come, first-served basis at http://www.facebook.com/username/. It's about time—the old format for accessing someone's profile included a string of random digits. My old Facebook URL looks like this: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=551052414. My new one is http://www.facebook.com/jhandel.