Amazon Not Liable for User Book Reviews–Hammer v. Amazon
By Eric Goldman Hammer v. Amazon.com, 2005 WL 2467046 (EDNY Sept. 27, 2005) This is a continuation of Hammer v. Trendl, 2003 WL 2146686 (EDNY Jan. 18, 2003). Hammer is a self-published author of handwriting analysis books. He had a…
Presentation on Coasean Analysis of Marketing
By Eric Goldman I’m giving a talk on my next major paper (tentatively titled “A Coasean Analysis of Marketing”…a title that will likely change yet again), at the Midwestern Law & Economics Association meeting in Chicago. A preview of my…
Jacoby on Sponsorship Confusion
By Eric Goldman Sorry for the light blogging–between my travel/presentation schedule and the Jewish holidays, it has been hectic! Jacob Jacoby is a leading trademark survey expert/consultant–I imagine he’s been an expert in over 150 trademark cases. He recently posted…
A Sharp Stick in the Eye of Trademark Law?
By Mark McKenna Over at his interesting blog (which Mark Schultz plugged a little while back), Grant McCracken has a post discussing modern marketing practices in terms of their “roundness” or “sharpness.” He suggests that all marketing used to be…
Menell on State Anti-Spyware Regulation
By Eric Goldman Peter Menell has posted his article “Regulating ‘Spyware’: The Limitations of State ‘Laboratories’ and the Case for Federal Preemption of State Unfair Competition Laws” to SSRN. This article thoroughly examines state-level unfair competition laws and how they…
Law Enforcement Collection of DNA
Recent legislative activity in the US Senate has brought some press attention to the touchy issue of DNA collection by law enforcement. Similar proposed and passed DNA legislation at the state and federal levels over the last several years has also drawn court challenges. As a result, a fair number of court opinions on the suject exist, enough to allow a quick look at the legal countours and legislative status of DNA collection laws.
1-800 Contacts Appeals 2nd Circuit WhenU Decision to the Supreme Court
By Eric Goldman 1-800 Contacts has appealed the 2nd Circuit decision in the WhenU case to the US Supreme Court. A copy of the petition (warning–5+ MB PDF file). As the brief states, the question presented is: “Does ‘use’ of…
You Can’t Always Get What You Want
Mark Schultz Not getting what you want as a consumer is bad news (of course, sometimes you get what you need), but failing to supply what consumers really want is a big mistake for marketers. Sometimes it’s hard to figure…
IP Blogs (and Other Blogs) Worth Considering
By Eric Goldman Yesterday at a CLE conference in Minnesota, I spoke on a panel about IP blogging with Marty Schwimmer and John Welch. Collectively, we combined our blogrolls to create a master list of the blogs that the three…
My Very Own Search Engine Spam Page
By Eric Goldman I know that aggressive marketers develop what’s commonly referred to as “spam pages”–low-value-added web pages that are intended to be indexed by the search engines and receive a low amount of traffic. Even with a low amount…