Timelines, Inc., a online website featuring dates and corresponding events in history, filed a recent proceeding against Facebook saying that it’s mark TIMELINES is not too generic to deserve protection and that Facebook’s timeline feature infringes on its mark. Facebook filed a summary judgment requesting that the lawsuit be dismissed. The lawsuit began when Timelines sued Facebook over the TIMELINES mark. Timelines claims that Facebook’s use of the feature is infringement and that it could drive Timelines out of business.

In its motion for summary judgment, Facebook argued that the word TIMELINES used in connection with software services that track and arrange information in chronological order is generic, since this is how the term “timeline” is defined. Therefore, Facebook argues that it should be allowed to use this term to identify its timeline feature.

In turn, Timelines argued that many of the marks used by Facebook are generic terms, including Facebook’s “Like” button.

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