According to TechCrunch, the company's application was recently approved by the US Patent Office (USPTO), sending the company a notice of allowance to the "face" trademark yesterday. This means that Facebook has three months to pay the issue fee (we're sure that won't be a problem), after which the "face" trademark will be theirs.

 

The process began when Facebook took over the patent application for the word "face" from a site known as Faceparty.com. Aaron Greenspan, the person who previously sued Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg over the creation of the site, opposed the application, but it has now been allowed by the USPTO.

 

The notice of allowance states that the site can enjoy trademark rights on the word "face" as long as it's limited to, "telecommunications services, namely, providing online chat rooms and electronic bulletin boards for transmission of messages among computer users in the field of general interest and concerning social and entertainment subject matter, none primarily featuring or relating to motoring or to cars".

 

Bad news for anyone wanting to create a social networking site with the word "face" in it, but its effects aren't likely to be felt much farther. It's actually interesting to note that several companies enjoy trademarks on common words such as these. We're not sure what was meant with the "relating to motoring" bit though. The Facebook car anyone?