Before choosing a name for your business, company, NGO or foundations and building a brand around the name, there’s every need for you to carry out some due diligence search and make sure that the name you chose or you want to name your organization has not already been taken or already in use by another fellow.
This was the mistake Mark Zuckerberg and his team made while changing the name of his company ‘Facebook’ to ‘Meta’ and this mistake is costing him about $20 million as there’s a start up company that already named their company ‘Meta. So the company is demanding $20million from Facebook to let them use the name Meta.
Background of the story
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On the 28th of October, 2021 Facebook announced the name of its company from Facebook which it was previously known as Meta. The name ‘Meta’ refers to the metaverse that its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, wants to build, ‘a network with avatars, accessed by augmented reality devices, that mixes the physical and virtual worlds’.
An American company called Meta PCs, which are into the production of computers and related devices, claimed that they already trademarked the name ‘Meta’ as they applied for the name to be registered in August.
They are agreeing to sell the name to Facebook only if Facebook agrees to pay the sum of twenty million dollars for the name.
This is why you need a lawyer to help you carry out the due diligence search, Business and company registration, incorporation, brand registration and trademark registration, patent rights acquisition etc.