Hotels Benefit When Distributors Reference the Hotel’s Trademark in Keyword Ad Copy
By Eric Goldman Lesley Chiou of Occidental College and Catherine Tucker of MIT have posted an empirical study, How Does the Use of Trademarks by Third-Party Sellers Affect Online Search? The study tries to model what happens when distributors use…
Viacom, FAPL and Amici File Briefs in Viacom v. YouTube Second Circuit Appeal
By Eric Goldman [note: all of the briefs referenced in this post are linked in the case library at the bottom of the post] Viacom and the FAPL have filed their opening appellate briefs in the Second Circuit appeal of…
SEO/Web Design Consultant Faces Contributory Trademark Liability for “Copycat” E-Commerce Site–Roger Cleveland Golf v. Price
By Eric Goldman Roger Cleveland Golf Co. v. Price, 2010 WL 5019260 (D. S.C. Dec. 3, 2010). [Note: the case captioning is probably wrong. Apparently, it should have been Roger Cleveland Golf Co. v. Prince] Online contributory trademark infringement liability…
Advertising & Marketing Law Syllabus for Spring 2011
By Eric Goldman Next semester, I am teaching Advertising & Marketing Law for the first time. My syllabus. This is a brand-new course built from the ground up. As teaching materials, I will be using an early draft of a…
Rosetta Stone v. Google Amicus Briefs in Support of Google
By Eric Goldman Three amicus briefs were filed in support of Google in the Rosetta Stone v. Google appeal. eBay and Yahoo. This is the “industry” brief, although in the past, typically more players have joined a brief like this….
Rosetta Stone v. Google Appellate Briefs: Google’s Opening Brief and Rosetta Stone’s Unredacted Brief
By Eric Goldman Due to the intervention of Public Citizen, Rosetta Stone filed an unredacted brief in its appeal of Rosetta Stone v. Google. The actual redacted material seemed hardly worthy of confidentiality; in some cases, the information already was…
Another Ruling Challenging “Check the Website for Amendments” Contract Provisions–Roling v. E*Trade
By Eric Goldman Roling v. E*Trade Securities LLC, 2010 WL 4916401 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 22, 2010). The plaintiffs are suing over E*Trade’s allegedly unilateral imposition of an account maintenance fee for folks who didn’t make at least one quarterly trade….
Web Host Denied 230 Defense When It Allegedly “Actively Contributes” to Website–Kruska v. Perverted Justice
By Eric Goldman Kruska v. Perverted Justice Foundation Incorporated.org, 2010 WL 4791666 (D. Ariz. Nov. 18, 2010). The CMLP page. I previously posted on this lawsuit in 2008, when the court dismissed GoDaddy as a defendant. This ruling deals with…
Wildcarding Subdomains Is OK; Reverse Domain Name Hijacking Isn’t–Goforit v. Digimedia
By Eric Goldman Goforit Entertainment LLC v. Digimedia.com LP, 2010 WL 4602549 (N.D. Tex. Oct. 25, 2010). See the related personal jurisdiction ruling from 2007 featuring a completely different but still ridiculously large and expensive cast of lawyers. This is…
Forwarding Defamatory Email Immunized by 47 USC 230–Mitan v. A. Neumann
By Eric Goldman Mitan v. A. Neumann & Associates, 2010 WL 4782771 (D. N.J. Nov. 17, 2010) This is another email forwarding case. Others in this line include Phan v. Pham (2010), John Doe Anti-Terrorism Officer v. City of New…