12-year-old startup named META sues Facebook for changing its name to Meta

META, a 12-year-old startup that creates immersive experiences, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against the company formerly known as Facebook for changing its name to Meta. META claims trademark infringement, unfair competition and infringement of its trademark. Not only did Facebook/Meta deliberately infringe META's two legal trademarks, but the lawsuit claims that once armed with its new name, the old Facebook engaged in unfair competition. It recruited artists that META had previously worked with to create immersive experiences, attracting some of its biggest clients.

In an interview with Inc., META Founder Justin Bolignino describes a startup founder's worst nightmare. He had spent years building the META brand and the metaverse concept, which was unheard of in 2009. In September 2021, it looked like that work was finally paying off.

“You are talking about one of the most precious words and ideas in the world,” he says. "Goldman Sachs says it's an industry worth over $8 billion over the next decade. This industry is based on this idea of ​​meta, metaverse - this other realm that we'll inhabit - that we've taken 12 years to build." Although META has only five full-time employees, it uses a huge cohort of entrepreneurs and independent creators to produce its immersive exhibits that have been experienced by more than 100,000 people, he says.

By end of September 2021, after highly successful projects with Rolling Stone, Microsoft and Red Bull, among others, and having produced high profile experiences at Coachella, SXSW and others major conferences, Bolognino thought the time for META had come. He sent a blast of emails to the company's customers, employees and contractors telling them that the world had become "obviously more... META". He added, "With the sudden explosion of the metaverse, we're finally seeing creators getting the accolades and revenue they deserve through NFTs."

A month later, everything has changed. Bolognino was in Las Vegas for his first guided tour of Arcadia Earth, an immersive sustainability exhibit created by META. "I was alone, eating a bland, boring breakfast. My phone was on the table and it was just bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing." Bolognino picked up the phone and had what he describes as a surreal, almost out of body experience. "It was like someone else was watching a movie of me watching Mark Zuckerberg with this big smile on my face."

META's attorneys have written to former Facebook attorneys, alerting them to the violation and seeking redress. Lawyers for the larger company responded that there could be no confusion between the two companies as they operated in different areas. META "provides live, multi-sensory experiences to engage audiences and consumers," the attorneys wrote. Former Facebook would use the Meta brand to bring together its many offerings as a social technology company, while working to bring the metaverse to life. In addition, the former Facebook had acquired the existing brands of several other entities named Meta, thus predating its own brand before the creation of META, they claimed. (Inc. has reached out to the old Facebook Meta for comment and will update this article if they respond.)

META found itself competing with the Meta that used to be Facebook at the same conferences and for the same customers, the lawsuit claims. Meanwhile, complaints to the larger company's legal team have come to nothing. Finally, eight months after Facebook became Meta, META filed a complaint. Bolognino says that was the last thing he wanted to do. "We just wanted to create the coolest immersive experiences in the world."

If META wins the lawsuit, it seeks both damages and an injunction to stop the former Facebook from using the Meta name in the spheres where META operates. But if he loses, so what?

Faced with this question, Bolignino remains silent for several seconds. "I don't want to give a non-answer but that's the problem," he says. "It's 12 years of a brand that was going to be on my tombstone. It's my identity. All we are is META. I don't know what else is or what to do. I don't know not."

For now, he's hanging on. Its legal team expects the former Facebook to respond to the lawsuit within 21 days, as required by law. But what will that answer be? "No idea what they're going to do. It's impossible to say," said Nicholas Saady, a...