July 2008 Quick Links, Part II (Non-IP Edition)
By Eric Goldman Search Engines * Google explains all of the ways that it reinterprets the actual search query provided by a consumer to deliver results for words the searcher didn’t use. As I’ve said before, Google’s intermediation makes it…
Teaching Cyberlaw Article
By Eric Goldman As part of the recent St. Louis University Law Journal’s issue on Teaching Intellectual Property Law, I published a short article entitled “Teaching Cyberlaw.” The abstract: “Over the past dozen years, Cyberlaw courses have become a staple…
June 2008 Quick Links
By Eric Goldman Trademarks/Domain Names * Utah Lighthouse Ministry v. Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research, 2008 WL 22043807 (10th Cir. May 29, 2008). CMLP writeup. Nice 10th Circuit win for a gripe site against trademark infringement and cybersquatting. This…
May 2008 Quick Links, Part 2
By Eric Goldman Copyright * Google says it isn’t settling the Viacom lawsuit (I don’t believe it). * Interesting juxtaposition: (1) Chronicle of Higher Education: How It Does It: The RIAA Explains How It Catches Alleged Music Pirates and (2)…
April 2008 Quick Links
By Eric Goldman Anti-Gaming * Even though Ticketmaster won its lawsuit, Minnesota overreacted to the Hannah Montana ticket crush by banning software to circumvent an online ticket allocation process. See Sec. 609.806. Check out the hyperbole in this press release!…
Feb. 2008 Quick Links
By Eric Goldman Advertising * BusinessWeek: Monetizing social networking sites isn’t as easy as everyone had hoped, clickthrough rates are through the floor (0.04%!), and ad proliferation on the sites is driving users away. * Wilbur, Kenneth C. and Zhu,…
Eric Menhart Backs Off CyberLaw Trademark Claim
By Eric Goldman You may recall that last month we all had a good laugh over self-proclaimed Cyberlawyer Eric Menhart’s trademark application for the term “CyberLaw” to describe his Cyberlaw practice. (In case it wasn’t clear, we weren’t laughing WITH…
Classic Article on “Cybermediaries”
By Eric Goldman Mitra B. Sarkar et al., Intermediaries and Cybermediaries: A Continuing Role for Mediating Players in the Electronic Marketplace, J. COMPUTER MEDIATED COMMUNICATIONS, 1995 I’ve been working on my Brand Spillovers paper, which in part addresses the trademark…
Who Owns “CyberLaw”(TM)? Eric Menhart, a DC IP Attorney, Thinks He Does
By Eric Goldman Every now and then, we see comical efforts to claim trademark rights in common Internet-related terms. You might recall that the word “Internet” itself was once a trademark (see a list of registrants dated 1994); the term…
The Victorian Internet
By Eric Goldman Tom Standage, The Victorian Internet (1998). Find it at Half.com and Amazon [the Amazon link is an affiliate link] As you might infer, I’m not at the cutting-edge of reading books. I don’t read that many books…