This pattern is too similar to the sign of the mobile payment tool Current.
Editor’s note: This article is from “Tencent Technology” .
Since the announcement of Facebook’s Libracoin program, the company has caused a lot of trouble and controversy. On Friday, eBay, MasterCard, Visa and Stripe announced that they have withdrawn from the program and poured it on Facebook. A basin of cold water.” However, the trouble of Libracoin has not ended. According to the latest news from foreign media, Facebook has encountered a lawsuit recently. The “crime” is the logo of the company’s Libracoin digital wallet, which copied the plaintiff’s trademark.
According to foreign media reports, when the Libra Coin project was announced in June, Facebook also introduced its own Libra currency digital wallet Calibra, which is a software that can manage Libra coins and conduct various transactions on mobile phones. After trials by foreign media, the software is currently only a prototype, and does not have a complete management function of a digital currency.
At the time, Facebook also announced the digital wallet logo. A circle containing a pattern of wavy curves has sparked some media attention because it is too similar to the sign of the mobile payment tool Current.
It is reported that the owner of Current Tools and the US company “Fenke Service Company of Delaware” have formally filed an infringement lawsuit. The list of defendants listed includes Facebook, digital wallet assets and intellectual property. The company Calibra (company name and product name are consistent), and the design company Character designed this logo.
To the surprise of the outside world, the plaintiff’s defendant also included a design agency. According to the indictment, the design company also designed these two similar signs.
These two logos were published three years apart. The plaintiff company said that the company began using its logo in August 2016, but the logo of Facebook’s digital wallet was only announced in June this year.
Howard Hill, a senior in the US intellectual property field, told the tech media that this intellectual property infringementIn the lawsuit, the defendant’s logo and the plaintiff’s logo came from the same design company, and the process was very problematic.
Obviously, the outside world has to wait for more details of the case to be exposed to know exactly why the two signs are so similar.
According to foreign media reports, Delaware Finkel Service Company mainly provides Internet finance and payment services through mobile phone software, and its product name is “Current”. In 2016, the company commissioned the above-mentioned Character Company to design the brand logo. After the design was completed, the company also registered the trademark with the US Patent and Trademark Office.
The company’s trademark registration covers a wide range of commercial activities, including transactions related to the use of cryptocurrencies through mobile software. This area covers the business of Facebook’s digital wallet software (Libra is also a cryptocurrency).
The plaintiff also said that in addition to the financial services software on Google and Apple, the company also uses the above-mentioned trademark logo on a bank savings card and official website.
According to Facebook’s framework design and interpretation, Libra is not a product of the company, but a member of all Libracoin associations. Like Facebook’s own Calibra, they can also launch their own Libracoin digital wallet and Internet financial services to compete directly with Calibra. However, compared with some Internet companies that join the Libra Currency Association (such as Internet car service providers Lyft, Uber), Facebook’s more than 2 billion active users around the world will become the basis for the development of Libracoin users, on the digital wallet service. Facebook naturally has a huge competitive advantage.