It’s Hard for Parodic Products to Tarnish Famous Trademarks–Bad Spaniels v. Jack Daniel’s
The jurisprudence of parody dog toys and trademark dilution continues to grow. 📈 In this case, “JDPI argues that the Bad Spaniels toy dilutes its marks ‘by associating the famed whiskey with,’ as the Supreme Court put it, ‘dog excrement.’”…
11th Circuit Rejects Keyword Advertising Liability–Deltona v. NOCO
This case involves two competitors in the vehicle-battery charger industry. The plaintiff calls its offering “Battery Tender” (based on the analogy of a ship’s tender) and claims trademark rights in the term. Believing that the term is generic, NOCO began…
Large Roundup of Section 230 Rulings
This blog post rounds up nearly 20 Section 230 cases (and adjacent cases), mostly from the past four months, that for whatever reason I didn’t cover in a standalone blog post. Section 230’s effects are waning overall, but this post…
Court Rebuffs Emojico’s SAD Scheme TRO Request
This is a very recent Emojico SAD Scheme enforcement (filed last week). I’ve blogged a few Emojico cases before (see the link list below). Indeed, my interest in the SAD Scheme started with an Emojico case, so I pay a…
Google Defeats “Negligent Digital Architecture” Claim–Starrâ„¢ v. Google
According to her website (sorry, no link love here), Katherine Starrâ„¢ is a 2-time Olympian (she swam on Great Britain’s swim team under the name “Annabelle Cripps“) and a sexual abuse survivor. She now spends a lot of time thinking…
Seventh Circuit Limits Email Service to Chinese SAD Scheme Defendants–Kangol v. Hangzhou Silk
There have been thousands of SAD Scheme cases in the Northern District of Illinois, but this extensive litigation activity has produced only a small handful of Seventh Circuit opinions. This lack of appellate review has played a major role in…
Raj Abhyanker’s Firm Ordered to Pay $90k+ for Ill-Advised Trademark Enforcement Lawsuit–LegalForce v. LawFirms
In one of Judge Alsup’s last rulings before he retired, after a bench trial he rejected LegalForce’s trademark claims over the LawFirms logo (the first logo was pre-litigation; the defendant switched to the second logo during the litigation). (Reminder: LegalForce…
Judge Shopping & Schedule A (Guest Blog Post)
By guest blogger Sarah Fackrell, Professor of Law at Chicago-Kent College of Law Plaintiffs are often allowed to choose their own forum. But they’re not supposed to be able to choose their own judge. And yet, in the U.S. District…
SAD Scheme Plaintiff Gets Default Win But Blows the Layup on Damages–Shenzen Huajie v. Shenzen Leyibei
This is a rare Seventh Circuit opinion on the SAD Scheme (it’s nonprecedential). The defense didn’t contest the appeal, but even without opposition, the rightsowner still whiffs. The court contextualizes the case: Intellectual property lawsuits like this one have flooded…
U.S. Supreme Court Narrows Secondary Liability in Copyright Law–Cox v. Sony (Guest Blog Post)
Guest Blog Post by Prof. Tyler Ochoa On March 25, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that Cox Communications, an internet access provider, is not liable for file-sharing infringements committed by its users. Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment,…