What does meta.company do? I can't find anything about them. How did Facebook steal the livelihood of a company that doesn't have any products or sell anything?
If you're going to stake claim to such a common, short term as your corporate name, it's definitely obvious that you're risking legal conflict with other entities that may claim that name. There's no way they didn't know what they were getting into in trying to use that name (with or without Facebook wanting it).
But ever since a certain company decided to call itself "fruit", and then go on rampage attacking small players which themselves used to be called "fruit" under the petty reason that they are actually producing and selling "fruit", there is a sense in US that, as long as you got the balls and the lawyers, there is just no limit. Limits of the rules, even when written, are for "others".
Trademark protection is to protect trade. A company that doesn't make a product yet is at a huge risk trying to hold a name against an established company that wants it... You can only infringe a trademark if you are doing business in the same or a very nearly adjacent industry (Apple Records v Apple Computer as a historical example).
I'm sure they can litigate it if they want, but when the question comes up of how Facebook being named Meta interferes with the business Meta of Chicago was engaged in, what will their answer be? If they weren't planning to do something in either the social network or virtual / augmented reality spaces, the likely answer is "neither of you are infringing the other, go about your business."
Sure this sucks for them, and I am no FB defender but that's the nature of trademark. Not a lawyer but even if they are in the same space as FB, I'd think they would forfeit their right to the mark if FB got their first, presuming they have not yet actually marketed a product to consumers under this name?
> One more thing: Our new product launch just got delayed because of Facebook. We must deal with these matters. In the coming weeks, we will make an announcement earlier than we expected. We promise it will be good. Stay tuned.
(and frankly it's still a bad name because it's a super common word. it was doomed as a product name anyway.)
It would even appear (from the letter) that facebook was already aware of this name conflict and decided to go ahead with the rename anyways.
Also Meta is a terrible name - for both companies., but that's beside the point (but it's like really stupid).
That doesn't matter, they own the trademark.
I said the same thing about matrix.org back in ~2015 when I first heard of the project. Fast forward to now, though, and "Matrix Room" links are ubiquitous among open source projects....
Prima facie it sucks but they can probably get global coverage for their product/services they're already selling (trademark registration requires current use, someone said the OP company have a trademark registered) on the basis of "what do we do now Facebook are using our name".
It seems likely that if they can't leverage this for financial benefit, in a forthright way, then they were going to fail anyway.
No they are not. Your quote, the article, and the empty social media pages the article links to do not answer the question, "What does meta.company do?".
Nate Skulic is also not listed in any leadership role on the website you linked.