August 2006 Quick Links (Volume 2)
By Eric Goldman Some more things that caught my eye in the past month (see Volume 1): * Wikipedia’s entry on trademarks that have become generic. “Google” isn’t listed…yet—instead, it’s listed as a trademark “often used generically”. HT: Marty. My…
August 2006 Quick Links (Volume 1)
By Eric Goldman So many good links this month, I’m breaking up this quick links post into two installments. The first installment: * When Internet start-ups want to hire their first lawyer, they typically have three immediate legal needs—they want…
Trademark Coexistence Agreement Article
By Eric Goldman Marianna Moss (a friend/wife of my former colleague) has written an article entitled Trademark “Coexistence” Agreements: Legitimate Contracts or Tools of Consumer Deception?, 18 Loyola Consumer Law Review 197 (2005). To my knowledge, this is the first…
Can 512(f) Support an Injunction? Novotny v. Chapman
By Eric Goldman Novotny v. Chapman, 2006 WL 2335598 (W.D. N.C. Aug. 9, 2006) Chapman prepares a video showing how to cut women’s hair. Novotny obtains a license to stream the video via the web. Later, Chapman has a change…
Fall 2006 Cyberlaw Syllabus
By Eric Goldman I’ve posted the syllabus for my Fall 2006 Cyberspace Law course. As I have done for the past 11 years, I prepared my own materials. To do so, I cull through all of the action from the…
Brand Spillovers Talk
By Eric Goldman Yesterday, at the IP Scholars Conference at Boalt, I presented my paper currently titled “Brand Spillovers.” This is the evolution of my project from last year I was calling Trademark Adjacency. I’m still trying to think through…
Whitney Information v. Xcentric Update
By Eric Goldman Whitney Information Network v. Xcentric Ventures, 2006 WL 2243041 (11th Cir. Aug 1, 2006) I previously blogged on this case, where the operators of ripoffreport.com and ripoffrevenge.com won a 230 defense in district court. However, the judge…
Jews for Jesus v. Google Lawsuit Settles
By Eric Goldman Jews for Jesus v. Google, Inc., 05-CV-10684 (SDNY voluntary dismissal filed July 26, 2006) You may recall the lawsuit filed by Jews for Jesus against Google in December. The lawsuit involved a BlogSpot user who created a…
eBay Not Liable for Defamatory Feedback–Sturm v. eBay
By Eric Goldman Sturm v. eBay, No. 1-06-CV-057926 (Cal. Superior Ct. July 27, 2006) [sorry, my copies are pretty poor: page 1, page 2] Your mother always said “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” This…
Amazon’s Display of Book Cover Doesn’t Violate Publicity Rights—Almeida v. Amazon.com
By Eric Goldman Almeida v. Amazon.com, Inc., 2006 U.S. APP. LEXIS 17989 (11th Cir. July 18, 2006) Introduction Product photos on e-commerce websites’ product pages are a notorious liability trap. During my tenure at Epinions, product page photos were the…