Google Avoids Another Lawsuit Over Rankings (For Now)–Roberts v. Google
By Eric Goldman Roberts v. Google, No. 1-06-CV-063047 (Cal. Superior Ct. complaint filed May 5, 2006 but voluntarily dismissed) In what he claims is the “first legitimate complaint vs google regarding search result issues,” Mark Roberts, a proprietor of two…
Search Engines Awarded Legal Fees in Unmeritorious Copyright Case–Newborn v. Yahoo
By Eric Goldman Newborn v. Yahoo, 2006 WL 1409769 (D.D.C. May 23, 2006) I blogged about this case in November 2005. At that time, the plaintiff sued Yahoo and Google under copyright and trademark law because the search engines had…
Merck v. Mediplan Redux–Keyword Purchases Really Aren’t Trademark Use
By Eric Goldman Merck & Co. v. Mediplan Health Consulting, Inc., 2006 WL 1418616 (SDNY motion for reconsideration denied May 24, 2006) In late March, the legality of the search engine keyword advertising industry got very murky due to two…
Edina Realty v. TheMLSOnline Settles
By Eric Goldman The Edina Realty v. TheMLSOnline case, which held (among other things) that purchasing a trademarked keyword was a trademark use in commerce, has reportedly settled, according to the Associated Press. That leaves in place the conflict between…
KinderStart v. Google Motions to Dismiss and Strike
By Eric Goldman KinderStart.com LLC v. Google, Inc., No. C 06-2057 RS (N.D. Cal. motions to dismiss and strike filed May 2, 2006) You may recall the pending lawsuit by KinderStart against Google for Google’s downgrade of KinderStart’s PageRank. My…
Quick Links May 2006
By Eric Goldman My blogging queue has gotten too thick. Here’s some items that caught my attention that I’ve been meaning to blog and simply haven’t gotten to. * I previously blogged about Chris Wilson, the website operator who allowed…
Yahoo “Syndication Fraud” Lawsuits–Crafts by Veronica v. Yahoo and Draucker Development v. Yahoo
By Eric Goldman Crafts by Veronica v. Yahoo, Inc., No. 2:06-cv-01985-JCL-MF (D. N.J. complaint filed May 1, 2006) Draucker Development v. Yahoo, Inc., No. CV06-2737 (C.D. Cal. complaint filed May 4, 2006) Two companion lawsuits against Yahoo for what the…
Google Sued for Child Porn–Toback v. Google
By Eric Goldman Toback v. Google, Inc., No. 06-007246 (NY Sup. Ct. complaint filed May 4, 2006) Yet another legislator has seized the public microphone to grandstand about Internet threats. This time the lucky legislator is Jeffrey Toback, a member…
AIT Click Fraud Lawsuit Stayed
By Eric Goldman Advanced Internet Technologies v. Google, 2006 WL 889477 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 5, 2006) AIT is the lead plaintiff who replaced Click Defense in a click fraud class action lawsuit. Last month, Google announced a tentative settlement of…
Keyword Purchases Not a Trademark Use–Merck v. Mediplan Health Consulting
By Eric Goldman Merck & Co. v. Mediplan Health Consulting, 2006 WL 800756 (SDNY Mar. 30, 2006) About a week after Edina Realty v. TheMLSonline allowed a keyword purchase of a competitor’s trademark to go to trial, we got another…