Vapor
Image: Calibra
Over the summer, Facebook unveiled its Libra cryptocurrency and the Calibra subsidiary that would help manage it. Facebook also unveiled a logo for Calibra and, well, it looks somewhat similar to the logo of Current, a startup bank. Apparently, Current agreed, so much so that it has filed a lawsuit against Facebook, alleging trademark infringement.
The
suit names four defendants: Facebook, Calibra, a Facebook subsidiary
that owns IP related to Calibra, and Character, the design agency that
made the Calibra logo. You might be surprised to see a design agency
named in the lawsuit — but Character apparently designed both logos,
according to the lawsuit.
The two logos were apparently designed
three years apart. Current claims that it started using its logo in
August 2016, while Facebook’s logo for Calibra was revealed in June of
this year.
An intellectual property lawyer that CoinDesk spoke with sums up the case well:
“It
is suspicious that the defendant’s logo came out of the same firm that
created the plaintiff’s logo,” Howard Shire, a partner in the
Intellectual Property Department of Pepper Hamilton LLP, told CoinDesk.
We’ll
have to wait for more details of the case to come to light (if they
ever do) to know about exactly why the two logos are so similar. I guess
there’s always the chance that different teams at Character made
similar logos three years apart, or that Facebook and Calibra had no
idea that its logo was just like Current’s. But the similarity sure does
look suspicious.
Source:www.theverge.com
Author:Jay Peters
Editor:Vapor