Facebook sues four Chinese companies over trademark infringement

Facebook is taking legal action against a cluster of Chinese websites that sell fake accounts, likes and followers both on Facebook itself and on Instagram. The company announced the legal action in a short blog post late Friday afternoon (a move unusual enough to pique our curiosity a little). Of course, the fact that Facebook isn’t allowed in China might be a complexifier, in Bezos-speak. The lawsuit, filed with the Northern District of California, alleges that starting in 2017 four Chinese companies and three individuals based in China “operated a series of websites promoting the sale of fake accounts (e.g. using fake names or other false identifiers) and inauthentic accounts (e.g. used for inauthentic activity),” infringing on Facebook and Instagram’s trademarks and terms of service in the process. The lawsuit names Xiu Network Science and Technology Company, Xiu Feishu Science and Technology Company, Xiufei Book Technology Co., Home Network (Fujian) Technology Co., Ltd. and three people affiliated with those operations. TechCrunch reached out to Facebook for clarification about the scope of the fraudulent activity and the reason behind its decision to escalate these concerns, though didn’t receive much clarification.

Trademark infringement is certainly nothing new for the biggest social network on the planet, so our guess is that the activity must have been on a fairly large scale to attract Facebook’s legal ire. The company is asking for $100,000 in damages each for six websites it lists in the complaint for trademark infringement, terms of service violations and cybersquatting domains using its name. At the time of writing, the domains in question mostly still appeared online and operational — another factor that may have contributed to Facebook’s choice to pursue legal action. Some of the websites also sell accounts for services from Google, Twitter other American tech companies. As Facebook notes in the filing, “According to their websites, these Defendants… engage in the registration and sale of accounts, in bulk, for various social networking sites.” When we looked into one of the websites, 9xiufacebook.com, we found that most people discovered it through a Chinese web search for “Facebook account purchase.”

https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/01/facebook-lawsuit-chinese-fake-accounts/

Case 3:19-cv-01167 Document 1 Filed 03/01/19 Page 1 of 22

https://www.scribd.com/document/400847566/Facebook-Inc-et-al-v-9-Xiu-Network-Science-and-Technology-Shenzhen-Company-Ltd-et-al#fullscreen&from_embed

Facebook Developer Conference

2019 marks Facebook's 10th F8. What started as an 8-hour hackathon has evolved into a 2-day event for developers, creators, entrepreneurs and innovators from around the world. There will be networking opportunities, deep-dive sessions and product demos that showcase the latest in AI, open source, AR/VR, developer programs as well as new tools across Facebook’s family of apps to help build products and grow businesses. Join F8 2019 as we celebrate our global developer community and highlight how technology can enable the best of what people can do together. Witness the introduction of new features and updates to Facebook’s family of apps, that will help build community and bring the world closer together. Join fellow developers for a Hackathon to build on the latest technology and unlock the potential of Facebook’s family of apps.

https://www.f8.com/

Inside Building 8, Facebook’s Secret Innovation Weapon

We’re about to find out what happens when neuroscientists, robotics experts, and social media behemoths join forces. In April 2016, Facebook announced the launch of Building 8, a research lab to develop hardware projects in the style of DARPA. The internet behemoth even enlisted former DARPA executive Regina Dugan to head up the division. Dugan, who was part of Google’s advanced projects division before taking on Building 8, has been leading an “all-star roster of tech veterans” since the project started.

Currently, Building 8 has four projects underway, and they touch upon cameras and augmented reality, devices that fly, and even brain-scanning technology. According to Business Insider, the technical lead for each project functions as a mini-CEO for the team, which has two years to produce a proof of concept. None of these new products have been released yet, but Facebook’s developer conference, FB8, takes place in San Jose, California, on April 18 and 19, and Building 8’s new toys could play a central role at the event, though nothing on the schedule explicitly mentions the division.

A Range of Innovation With Building 8, Facebook took a risk, stepping into hardware development despite a lack of experience in that realm, and they’re now competing against giants like Google and Apple. The new division is even structured very similarly to Google’s ATAP and X moonshot lab, and teams are conducting research in some of the same areas. A Facebook that can read your mind has been on Mark Zuckerberg’s mind for a while now, and Building 8’s team includes a neuroscientist, formerly of Johns Hopkins, who was part of the team that developed a mind-controlled prosthetic arm. This scientist now leads the brain-scanning tech project for Building 8. Introducing both virtual and augmented reality into the Facebook world has also been an interest of Zuckerberg’s, and another current Building 8 project involves cameras and augmented reality.

A third project with medical applications is being led by a Stanford interventional cardiologist with expertise in the development of early stage medical devices. These academic collaborations are also a part of the Facebook long game, which culminated with the launch of SARA, the “Sponsored Academic Research Agreement,” in December 2016.

Building 8 is also taking to the air with the help of Frank Dellaert, a computer vision and robotics expert leading what appears to be a consumer drone project. Dellaert was previously the chief scientist at Skydio, a drone startup, and that company’s former head of hardware, Stephen McClure, has also signed on to Building 8. They are joined by several former GoPro employees. Dugan wrote of Dellaert, “He’s going to help us make things fly … when he’s not guarding the door.” Building 8 is reportedly planning to jumpstart a fifth project, as yet unspecified and leaderless. Based on the highly qualified hires for Building 8, Facebook appears to view the division as a long-term investment and is quite serious about manufacturing and selling its own devices — whatever they turn out to be.

https://futurism.com/inside-building-8-facebooks-secret-innovation-weapon/

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