Brazil: Issued Court ruling ordering Meta to cease using the name in Brazil following a lawsuit alleging trademark infringement (Meta Servicos v Meta Platforms Inc)

On 28 February 2024, the Court of Justice of the State of Sao Paulo ruled in favour of local computer services provider Meta Servicos in an intellectual property dispute against Facebook's parent company, Meta Platforms Inc. The court ordered Meta to cease using its name in Brazil within 30 days following a lawsuit filed by Meta Servicos. The local firm, which registered its brand in the late 2000s with Brazil's National Institute for Intellectual Property, claimed that it had been wrongly included in more than 27 lawsuits, had to deal with numerous phone calls and physical visits to its headquarters by users seeking solutions to their Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp account problems, received negative reviews on portals such as Glassdoor and had Instagram profiles disabled due to confusion between the two companies. The Court decided that Meta Platforms Inc. is obligated to permanently state on its communication channels that the Appellant (Meta Servicios) holds the META trademark in Brazil and is neither directly nor indirectly part of the Facebook Group within 48 hours. The court also ruled that Meta must pay BRL 100'000 per day if it fails to comply with the decision.