YNOT – Sometimes imitation is not the sincerest form of flattery, as the owners of Faceporn.com discovered mid-month when Facebook sued the upstart X-rated social network for trademark infringement.In Facebook v. Pederson, filed Oct. 15 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Facebook seeks possession of the Faceporn domain and all profits owner Thomas Pederson has acquired by infringing upon the former’s trademarked name, color scheme and certain “confusingly similar” features. Screen shots filed as exhibits in the case indicate that before Faceporn took itself offline Oct. 20, the site employed a blue-and-white décor reminiscent of Facebook’s, as well as a “wall” where members may communicate with each other.

As for the name, Facebook seems to be making a habit of suing other websites that “show bad faith” by daring to use the words “book” or “face” in their domain names. Critics claim the company overreaches in many such cases by attempting to lay claim to common English words. In August, Facebook sued TeachBook — a social-networking site for educators — based on the site’s name, even though TeachBook is in no way similar to uber-touchy Facebook. That case is ongoing.

A Facebook spokesman said the company takes its intellectual property rights seriously.

“We don’t believe Faceporn should be able to trade on our name and dilute and tarnish our brand while doing so,” Simon Axten told ComputerWorld.com on Friday. “Where there is brand tarnishment, dilution or confusion as there is with Faceporn and Facebook, we must enforce our rights to protect the integrity of our trademark.”

Faceporn’s homepage indicates the network is offline for a redesign.

“Due to unforeseen circumstances, faceporn is down until further notice,” the note says. “We are doing our best to come back better than ever. We’re currently working to launch a completely new version of the site, and it will be the best porn site the world has ever seen.”

Court documents indicate a hearing has been scheduled for Jan. 21, 2011.