German Company Sues Facebook Over Page Name

Domain name squabbles aren’t just restricted to .coms, it seems. A German pharmaceutical company doing business as Merck evidently entered into an agreement with Facebook in March of last year to hold rights to the page at www.facebook.com/merck. However, the U.S. company doing business as Merck is now “squatting” on that page, and the German Merck has filed suit in New York to get its Facebook page back.

Interestingly enough, the two companies were separated as part of German reparations after World War I. They are not affiliated with each other and are, in fact, competitors. (Who knew a Facebook war could have its origins in 1918?)

This dispute raises the question as to whether regulatory efforts regarding domain names can be translated to other styles of websites. The German Merck’s lawyers argue that the Facebook page is of great marketing value, and that because Facebook does not differentiate internationally in the same way that .coms don’t, the German Merck’s rights to this property of value have been co-opted.

Merck is not suing the U.S. Merck, however; it is suing Facebook only at this time, because Facebook has refused to hand over documents and information that Merck finds necessary to determine how the U.S. Merck obtained access to the facebook.com/merck page. The suit also claims that Facebook was unresponsive and evasive to the German Merck when the company tried to resolve the matter, and hints at further action if nothing is done to restore the Facebook page to the German company.

The suit was filed on the Monday before Thanksgiving. Time will tell whether the page will be returned to the right Merck.