Meta must buy trademark rights from bank for $60 million

I wonder if this is what Mark Zuckerberg had in mind when he renamed the Facebook umbrella company Meta (we reported)? Now they had to buy the trademark rights for for the name from the bank Meta Financial – for 60 million USD dollars.

Meta: There can be only one

Even after the renaming to Meta Platforms, Inc. the new brand name does not come cheaply to the Facebook group. Meta Platforms has now reached an agreement with Meta Financial Group, a US financial institution, on December 7 and will initially pay $50 million for the trademark rights.

In return, the U.S. bank will transfer all naming and trademark rights with the name “Meta” to Meta Platforms, according to a notification from the financial institution to the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC). The purchase was handled by Beige Key, LLC – but Facebook Group is behind it, as Reuters found out.

So Meta Financial Group, its subsidiary MetaBank and other divisions of the company will have to change the names of all their products so that the term no longer appears in them. That won’t be cheap for the bank, either, and must be done within a year.

Once the changeover is complete, a further $10 million will be credited to the Meta Financial Group’s account, bringing the total to $60 million, or the equivalent of 53 million euros.

Meta PCs, the Arizona-based PC specialist that assembles computers with the components requested by customers, will probably also have to part with its name. Here, 20 million US dollars were publicly called out for the rights to the name.

Can a brand name only exist once?

The renaming of Meta PCs is relevant in that Meta Platforms also offers PC hardware components. In principle, however, it is not a problem if several companies use the same brand name in parallel. At least as long as they do not get in each other’s way.

This may be because they operate in different countries or territories, or because they offer completely different products or services. Moreover, it is possible to introduce and use new trademarks without registration at all. Registration merely simplifies the defense of one’s trademark rights against third parties.

Meta, Meta, Meta

The trademark register of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) currently lists twelve valid registrations denominated in “Meta” – two applications are still pending. Among them is the German company META-Regalbau, which manufactures metals, machines and tools, as well as furniture, and therefore has hardly any points of contact with the Facebook Group.

Things will get interesting with the font company Monotype GmbH. It secured Meta years ago in the classes of software and storage media, as well as photographs. In addition, there are several thousand registrations worldwide for word and word-picture trademarks in which the term Meta appears alone or in combination with other signs or words. So it remains exciting.