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	<title>WebProNews &#187; Aaron Greenspan</title>
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	<link>http://www.webpronews.com</link>
	<description>Breaking News in Tech, Search, Social, &#38; Business</description>
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		<title>The Missing Credit of &#8220;The Social Network&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://www.webpronews.com/the-missing-credit-of-the-social-network-2010-09</link>
		<comments>http://www.webpronews.com/the-missing-credit-of-the-social-network-2010-09#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 22 Sep 2010 15:54:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Chris Crum</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Entertainment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aaron Greenspan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Films]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Movies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social networks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Social Network]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.webpronews.com/?p=55593</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>Last year, Facebook <a href="http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/05/26/facebook-trademark-dispute-resolved">settled a trademark dispute</a> with Aaron Greenspan, CEO of <a href="http://www.thinkcomputer.com/">Think Computer Corporation</a> and Harvard classmate of Mark Zuckerberg, who built houseSYSTEM, a section of which was called &#34;The Universal Facebook&#34;.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Last year, Facebook <a href="http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/05/26/facebook-trademark-dispute-resolved">settled a trademark dispute</a> with Aaron Greenspan, CEO of <a href="http://www.thinkcomputer.com/">Think Computer Corporation</a> and Harvard classmate of Mark Zuckerberg, who built houseSYSTEM, a section of which was called &quot;The Universal Facebook&quot;. Now, Greenspan has written a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-greenspan/the-legend-of-mark-zucker_b_732625.html">lengthy piece</a> for the Huffington Post, essentially complaining about the upcoming film, <em>The Social Network</em>, and how it completely ignores his alleged role in the founding of Facebook.&nbsp; </p>
<p>Greenspan&#8217;s story has been well documented. He has written a book about it, which is <a href="http://www.aarongreenspan.com/authoritas.html">available for free online</a>, and hasn&#8217;t had had a Hollywood movie made about it. Here&#8217;s a snippet <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Greenspan#Aaron_Greenspan_and_houseSYSTEM">from Wikipedia</a> about his story: </p>
<p><em>On January 11, 2004, a few days after meeting Greenspan and concurrent with using the Universal Face Book on houseSYSTEM, Zuckerberg registered the domain name &quot;thefacebook.com&quot; independently. On February 4, 2004, when thefacebook.com launched, Greenspan recognized aspects of his own work in the site, and later came to believe that Zuckerberg was copying his work one feature at a time&mdash;a claim that Zuckerberg denied. Many of the features Greenspan created for houseSYSTEM, such as the digital event posters, electronic RSVPs, organizational pages, photo album, and marketplace, did eventually appear on thefacebook.com under similar names. Zuckerberg was aware of these features, eventually telling Greenspan at one point, &quot;your facenet thing is hot.&quot; Social networking functionality was added to houseSYSTEM in March, 2004, and the name &quot;FaceNet&quot; replaced the &quot;Universal Face Book.&quot; Regarding Greenspan&#8217;s allegations, Zuckerberg was described in The New York Times as &quot;saying through a spokeswoman that he was not sure how to respond. </em></p>
<p><em>The Accidental Billionaires</em>, the book on which The Social Network is based upon does mention Greenspan, though incorrectly as &quot;Aaron Grossman&quot;, after Greenspan declined to cooperate with author Ben Mezrich on the book. &nbsp;Mezrich did cite Greenspan&#8217;s book as a source. </p>
<p>In his Huffington Post article, Greenspan <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-greenspan/the-legend-of-mark-zucker_b_732625.html">writes</a>: </p>
<p><em><img alt="Aaron Greenspan says how he feels about The Social Network" align="right" title="Aaron Greenspan says how he feels about The Social Network" style="margin: 10px" src="http://images.ientrymail.com/webpronews/article_pics/aaron-greenspan2.jpg" />In a few weeks, Mark will take his place in that pantheon of American culture, The Internet Movie Database, when he, or rather, his character, appears in The Social Network, the movie that pretends to capture his story. At that point, his legend will be complete. Yet none of what you have just read here will be featured in the film, or even mentioned, because I refused to co-operate with another Harvard graduate who long ago sold his soul (and more recently, his manuscript to Sony Pictures), Ben Mezrich. Mr. Mezrich&#8217;s book, The Accidental Billionaires, is possibly best described as non-non-fiction, for though it cites my non-fiction book as a source, a staggering amount of his writing is simply invented out of thin air. (Much like ignoring friendship, ignoring fact can also be quite profitable.) Mr. Mezrich did manage to obtain the co-operation of Eduardo Saverin, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra, though the last three have been rather silent about that fact. Out of the five Harvard classmates who ultimately filed legal action against Mark in one form or another, I am the only programmer, and apparently the only one who did not sign away the right to discuss what happened, which in the spirit of openness is especially important to me. </p>
<p>In other words, despite not appearing anywhere in The Social Network, and despite not being called a co-founder of Facebook, Inc., the facts are what they are (and are publicly available for all to see). With the exception of social networking features that I intentionally left out to avoid a second privacy firestorm, and hoping to create a far more productive tool than what eventually emerged, I created The Facebook. Mark&#8217;s version is an adaptation, and an immensely popular one that certainly defies any precedent I know of, but it is hardly the original, and hardly the best version for us all as a society. It is simply the best one for him. </em></p>
<p>Later in the piece, he writes, &quot;There is such a thing as bad press, but being forced to pretend that you don&#8217;t even exist, which is what The Social Network has forced me to do, is even worse.&quot; </p>
<p>As news of the legal settlement between Greenspan and Facebook came out last year, Zuckerberg was <a href="http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/05/26/facebook-trademark-dispute-resolved">quoted as saying</a>, &quot;Aaron and I studied together at Harvard and I&#8217;ve always admired his entrepreneurial spirit and love of building things. &nbsp;I appreciate his hard work and innovation that led to building houseSYSTEM, including the Universal Face Book feature&#8230; &nbsp;We are pleased that we&#8217;ve been able to amicably resolve our differences.&quot;</p>
<div>That&#8217;s an interesting way of putting it. I think it&#8217;s safe to say Greenspan, who calls Zuckerberg&#8217;s Facebook &quot;a national security issue&quot;, sees things a bit differently.</div>
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		<title>Facebook Tries To Own &#8220;Face&#8221; And &#8220;Book&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://www.webpronews.com/facebook-tries-to-own-face-and-book-2010-08</link>
		<comments>http://www.webpronews.com/facebook-tries-to-own-face-and-book-2010-08#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 27 Aug 2010 12:18:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Chris Crum</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Social Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aaron Greenspan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Legal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social networks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Teachbook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Trademarks]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.webpronews.com/?p=55277</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>As you may have read, <a href="http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/08/26/facebook-sues-teacher-resource-for-using-the-word-book">Facebook is suing Teachbook</a> for using the word &#34;book&#34; and being a competitor. To put it in Facebook's exact words, the company's Director of Policy Communications, Barry Schnitt, <a href="http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/08/26/teachbook-doesnt-know-why-facebook-wants-to-impede-teaching-and-learning">tells WebProNews</a>:<br />
<em>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>As you may have read, <a href="http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/08/26/facebook-sues-teacher-resource-for-using-the-word-book">Facebook is suing Teachbook</a> for using the word &quot;book&quot; and being a competitor. To put it in Facebook&#8217;s exact words, the company&#8217;s Director of Policy Communications, Barry Schnitt, <a href="http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/08/26/teachbook-doesnt-know-why-facebook-wants-to-impede-teaching-and-learning">tells WebProNews</a>:<br />
<em><br />
&quot;The problem is not merely that they use the word &quot;book.&quot; You&#8217;ll notice that we have no complaint against Kelly Blue Book or Yellowbook or others. However, there is already a well-known online service with &#8216;book&#8217; in the brand name that helps people connect and share. Of course the Teachbook folks are free to create a similar service for teachers or whomever they like, and we wish them well in that endeavor. What they are not free to do is trade on our name, create confusion, or dilute our brand while doing so. Additionally, it&#8217;s important to note that where there is confusion or brand dilution as there is with Teachbook and Facebook, we must enforce our rights to protect the integrity of our trademark.</em></p>
<p>Facebook is currently trying to register the word &quot;Face&quot; <a href="http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&amp;entry=78980756">as a trademark,</a> TechCrunch <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/26/trademark-face/">reports</a>. Erick Schonfeld writes, &quot;Facebook took over the trademark application for &#8216;Face&#8217; from a company in the UK called CIS Internet Limited, which operated a site called <a href="http://www.faceparty.com/">Faceparty.com</a>. Presumably, Facebook bought the application sometime around November, 2008, which is when its lawyer started dealing with the USPTO.&quot;</p>
<p>In an interesting twist, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Greenspan">Aaron Greenspan</a>, Mark Zuckerberg&#8217;s Harvard classmate, who claimed to have had a hand in Facebook&#8217;s creation, also has a mobile payments app called FaceCash under his Think Computer company. He is <a href="http://ttabvue.uspto.gov/ttabvue/v?qs=78980756">listed as a potential opposer</a> to the &quot;Face&quot; mark, as Schonfeld points to.</p>
<p><center><a href="https://www.thinklink.com/index.html?source=facecash.com"><img alt="FaceCash from Aaron Greenspan" title="FaceCash from Aaron Greenspan" src="http://images.ientrymail.com/webpronews/article_pics/facecash.jpg" /></a></center></p>
<p>Just as there are plenty of other items that use the word &quot;book&quot; there are plenty that use the word &quot;face&quot;, notably, Apple&#8217;s Facetime iPhone feature, which it has been heavily marketed since the release of the iPhone 4. </p>
<p>Facebook has made no indication that it intends to go after any service using &quot;Face&quot; in its name, just as the company told us it isn&#8217;t going after every company using &quot;book&quot;, but considering how closely Teachbook is related to Facebook, it&#8217;s hard to say what Facebook would find too close for comfort.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<item>
		<title>Facebook Trademark Dispute Resolved</title>
		<link>http://www.webpronews.com/facebook-trademark-dispute-resolved-2009-05</link>
		<comments>http://www.webpronews.com/facebook-trademark-dispute-resolved-2009-05#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 26 May 2009 14:35:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Doug Caverly</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Social Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aaron Greenspan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Legal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Think Computer]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.webpronews.com/?p=50011</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>Another argument regarding Facebook's origins seems to have been cleared up.&#160; Think Computer Corporation and Facebook reached a private settlement late last week, ending a dispute that concerned nothing less than the name of the well-known social network.&#160;</p>
]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Another argument regarding Facebook&#8217;s origins seems to have been cleared up.&nbsp; Think Computer Corporation and Facebook reached a private settlement late last week, ending a dispute that concerned nothing less than the name of the well-known social network.&nbsp;</p>
<p><span id="more-50011"></span></p>
<div style="font-size: 10px; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px; width: 130px; color: rgb(153,153,153)"><img title="Facebook Logo" height="50" alt="Facebook Logo" width="130" align="right" border="0" src="http://images.ientrymail.com/webpronews/article_pics/facebook_logo.jpg" /></div>
<p>Aaron Greenspan, founder and CEO of Think Computer Corporation, attended Harvard with Facebook cofounder Mark Zuckerberg.&nbsp; Greenspan also happened to come up with a portal called houseSYSTEM, and a section within said portal was called &quot;The Universal Face Book.&quot;</p>
<p>See the potential problem?&nbsp; So did Greenspan.&nbsp; Think wound up asking the United States Patent and Trademark Office to cancel trademarks issued to Facebook.</p>
<p>Now, however, &quot;Think Computer Corporation and Facebook announced . . . that they have settled all outstanding claims, including all of Think&#8217;s claims related to Facebook&#8217;s registered trademarks,&quot; according to an official statement.</p>
<p>Zuckerberg and Greenspan both made gracious comments, too, with the first man saying, &quot;Aaron and I studied together at Harvard and I&#8217;ve always admired his entrepreneurial spirit and love of building things.&nbsp; I appreciate his hard work and innovation that led to building houseSYSTEM, including the Universal Face Book feature. . . .&nbsp; We are pleased that we&#8217;ve been able to amicably resolve our differences.&quot;</p>
<p>The last <a title="&quot;Settlement with ConnectU cost Facebook $65 million&quot;" href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/02/connectu-facebo.html">&quot;origin&quot; dispute/lawsuit</a> Facebook settled cost the company around $65 million in cash and stock options.</p>
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		<item>
		<title>Facebook Faces Trademark Challenge</title>
		<link>http://www.webpronews.com/facebook-faces-trademark-challenge-2008-04</link>
		<comments>http://www.webpronews.com/facebook-faces-trademark-challenge-2008-04#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 16 Apr 2008 16:33:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>WebProNews Staff</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Social Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aaron Greenspan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mark Zuckerberg]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Think Computer]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.webpronews.com/?p=45052</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>A social networking rival wants the USPTO to cancel Facebook's trademark on its name, saying Mark Zuckerberg did not have the right to apply for that mark.</p>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>A social networking rival wants the USPTO to cancel Facebook&#8217;s trademark on its name, saying Mark Zuckerberg did not have the right to apply for that mark.</p>
<p><span id="more-45052"></span>
<p>Generic usage of the term &quot;Facebook&quot; across the Harvard campus made it unable to be trademarked, something that Facebook CEO Zuckerberg managed to do in 2005. Aaron Greenspan hopes this contention will be sufficient to elicit a settlement out of Facebook, along with permission to use the Facebook name in the title of a self-published book.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/news/biztech/new-fight-brewing-for-facebook-founder/2008/04/16/1208025240414.html">Sydney Morning Herald</a> said Greenspan hasn&#8217;t talked to Zuckerberg since 2006. Greenspan&#8217;s Think Computer Corp website also shows he hasn&#8217;t forgotten the social networking site; the text &quot;Inventors of The Facebook&quot; appears on Think Computer&#8217;s home page.</p>
<p>&quot;Think began using the term &quot;The Facebook&quot; to describe one of the components of its houseSYSTEM student portal at Harvard University in the summer of 2003,&quot; Greenspan said in a statement. &quot;It launched the feature on September 19, 2003, several months before thefacebook.com began accepting new users on February 4, 2004.&quot;</p>
<p>&quot;Think&#8217;s petition asks the USPTO to cancel the Facebook, Inc. trademark on three grounds: priority of use, genericness, and fraud committed on the agency itself,&quot; he continued.</p>
<p>Greenspan wants to capitalize on the Facebook name for his book, but a publishing firm would not accept the book with the Facebook trademark in the title. That led to his filing with the US Patent &amp; Trademark Office.</p>
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