Meta Platforms Inc is filed for trademark lawsuit by MetaX LLC, an immersive virtual reality experience provider, at Manhattan federal court accusing it for name theft in its efforts to pivot into the metaverse.

The New York-based company complained that it had been tarnished after Facebook rebranded as Meta, saying its ability to operate as Meta was disembowell.

It also accused the social media giant for infringing its federal trademarks and requested a court order to prohibit Meta Platforms from deploying goods and services that relate to MetaX’s, while asking to charge for money damages as well.

In October 2021, Meta Platforms changed its name from the name of its social networking service in a wager that the metaverse, a communal virtual space, would eclipse mobile internet.

Using tools like virtual reality and augmented reality, MetaX focuses on experiential and immersive technologies.

The company said in the lawsuit that it and Facebook had talked about collaborating in 2017 and that a Facebook executive had called one of MetaX's experiences from that year amazing and spectacular.

It has begun offering comparable immersive experiences at some of the same locations where it hosted its exhibits, including Coachella and South by Southwest, according to MetaX, which claimed that Meta Platforms' new focus on the metaverse and related VR and augmented-reality technology overlaps with its company.

According to MetaX, Meta Platforms' redesign will drive it out of the market and has already led some consumers to believe the two businesses are related.

MetaX's founder, Justin ‘JB’ Bolognino, adds that Meta Platforms had "not only put our business in jeopardy, but that of the entire industry and the intellectual property rights of the innovators that have helped build it."