Sixth Circuit Says Informational Fax Isn’t an “Ad”–Sandusky v. Medco
Medco is a “pharmacy benefit manager” (an intermediary between employers/health plan sponsors and drug companies). It sent two faxes to Sandusky Wellness Center, a health care provider, advising that many Sandusky patients had adopted Medco’s formulary, and encouraging Sandusky to…
Federal Criminal “True Threats” Require More Than Negligence–Elonis v. U.S.
The Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision in Elonis (the so-called “Facebook threats” case) today. Elonis was convicted of posting rap lyrics that were allegedly threatening to his now ex-wife and to law enforcement officers. The trial court used a…
Washington Anti-SLAPP Statute Violates Right To Jury Trial–Davis v. Cox
The Washington State Supreme Court struck down the state’s anti-SLAPP statute on the basis that it violates a plaintiff’s right to a jury trial. This ruling comes on the heels of the District of Columbia Circuit’s holding that state anti-SLAPP…
Doing Online Reputation Management? Don’t Do It This Way (Forbes Cross-Post)
Recently, I got two identical emails from info@infringex.com sending me a “Notice of Infringement of Defamation.” The notice informs me that a 2012 blog post–written by my perma-guest blogger, Venkat–makes public comments about the purported sender. It further says that…
Online Magazine Gets Section 230 Protection For Third Party Article–AdvanFort v. International Registries
If I didn’t practice Internet law, I might have chosen maritime law. Their disputes are often interesting. This particular case sounds like a movie plotline. AdvanFort provides armed guards to ships worried about piracy (the real kind…you know, on the…
Can Lawyers Buy Keyword Ads On Each Others’ Names At Google? (Forbes Cross-Post)
“Competitive keyword advertising” occurs when a company buys the trademarks of its competition as keywords for search engine marketing. In the 2000s, it was one of the most interesting and hotly-contested issues of Internet Law as trademark owners filed many…
Ripoff Report Gets Easy Section 230 Win In Third Circuit–Obado v. Magedson
This was a really interesting pro se challenge to Section 230. The lower court opinion contained all kinds of gems, including holding that Section 230 applies to Google’s autocomplete and to allegations of search engine manipulation. The Third Circuit’s opinion…
A Fishy Jurisdiction Ruling Involving Mobile Apps–Tomelleri v. MEDL
For those of you who teach the Zatarain’s v. Oak Grove Smokehouse trademark case, you know how much I wanted to stock this blog post with fish puns. Joseph Tomelleri draws fishes, and he sells his illustrations via his website…
California’s Resale Royalty Statute Violates the Dormant Commerce Clause—In Part (Guest Blog Post)
By guest blogger Tyler Ochoa On Tuesday, May 5, an eleven-judge en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit held that California’s Resale Royalty Statute, Civil Code § 986, could not Constitutionally be applied to sales of works of art that…
Some Specific Problems With The Proposed Federal Trade Secret Law (Comments From a Reader)
Recently, David Levine guest-blogged a bibliography about a new federal trade secret law. In response to that post, a reader emailed me the following comments (which, as usual, I’m sharing with permission): __ First, the initial problem is that an…