Talk Notes: Death of the Initial Interest Confusion Doctrine?
By Eric Goldman As you may know, the IP professor community is blessed to have a number of “work-in-progress” events where we share our research-in-process with, and get early feedback from, our peers. Last weekend, I attended one of those…
Employee Wins Harassment Claim Based in Part on Co-Workers’ Offsite Blog Posts–Espinoza v. Orange
By Eric Goldman Espinoza v. County of Orange, 2012 WL 420149 (Cal. App. Ct. February 9, 2012) Espinoza was born with an incomplete hand. In 1996, he started working for the county probations department. In 2006, a co-worker started two…
Roommates.com Isn’t Dealing in Illegal Content, Even Though the Ninth Circuit Denied Section 230 Immunity Because It Was
By Eric Goldman Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley v. Roommate.com, LLC, 2012 WL 310849 (9th Cir. February 2, 2012) A brief history of this long-running case. Fair housing advocates sued Roommates.com for allowing potential roommates to evaluate each…
Are You Kinning Me? Microsoft Beats Trademark Lawsuit Over Kinect–Kinbook v. Microsoft
By Eric Goldman Kinbook LLC v. Microsoft Corp., 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8570 (E.D. Pa. Jan. 25, 2012) Microsoft makes the Kinect motion controller for Xbox, and for a while tried out a mobile phone named Kin. Kinbook makes a…
Comments on Twitter’s Country-by-Country Tweet Removal Announcement
By Venkat Balasubramani, with comments from Eric. Twitter recently announced its decision to censor tweets on a country-by-country basis. People were up in arms and planned a #twitterblackout. It was a big story last week. (Needless to say, I didn’t…
Vendor Fails to Form Either an Online or Paper Contract With Customers–Kwan v. Clearwire
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Kwan v. Clearwire Corp., C09-1392JLR (W.D.Wash.; Jan. 3, 2012) Professor Goldman blogged recently about a case involving Facebook where the court enforced Facebook’s terms of use and based on a venue clause in Facebook’s terms transferred…