2H 2018 Quick Links, Part 3 (Keyword Advertising)
* St. George Executive Shuttle LLC v. Western Trails Charter & Tours LLC, 2018 WL 3350348 (D. Utah July 9, 2018). This is a competitive keyword advertising lawsuit involving the purported trademark “St. George Shuttle” (St. George is a city…
2H 2018 Quick Links, Part 2 (Trademarks)
* Chanel, Inc. v. Wgaca, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 158077 (SDNY Sept. 14, 2018): Chanel’s amended complaint plausibly alleges that WGACA’s use of the hashtag #WGACACHANEL infringes Chanel’s trademarks. It alleges that WGACA conjoined its acronym with the Chanel trademark…
Avvo Defeats False Advertising Lawsuit Alleging Pay-to-Play–Davis v. Avvo
The plaintiff alleges that Avvo provides editorial benefits to lawyers who advertise on Avvo, which causes the advertisers to get prospective clients who would have chosen the non-advertising lawyers. There are some parallels to the lawsuits against Yelp alleging pay-to-play,…
The Ongoing Saga of the Florida Bar’s Angst About Competitive Keyword Advertising
In August, I reported on the Florida Bar’s continued angst about regulating competitive keyword advertising by lawyers. Read my post, “The Florida Bar and Competitive Keyword Advertising: A Tragicomedy (in 3 Parts),” for the full background. The short story is…
Consumers Don’t Confuse Almond Milk and Cow Milk–Painter v. Blue Diamond
A putative class claimed Blue Diamond “mislabeled its almond beverages as ‘almond milk’ when they should be labeled ‘imitation milk’ because they substitute for and resemble dairy milk but are nutritionally inferior to it.” The lawsuit fails. The court responded…
Your Periodic Reminder That Keyword Ad Lawsuits Are Stupid–Passport Health v. Avance
The parties compete for the provision of health services related to traveling, like immunizations. The defendant Avance bought keyword ads triggered on the plaintiff’s trademark “Passport Health.” In 2013, the trademark owner complained, and Avance apparently dropped the Google ad…
If Your Trademark Case Depends on Showing Initial Interest Confusion, Save Your Money–Select Comfort v. John Baxter
I’ve bashed the initial interest confusion doctrine for decades. It’s one of the worst doctrinal “innovations” in trademark law–ever. However, you might have noticed that I haven’t blogged many initial interest confusion cases recently. Why? Because the phrase rarely shows…
Restricting Competitive Keyword Ads Is Anti-Competitive–FTC v. 1-800 Contacts
Starting in 2002 and continuing for about a decade, 1-800 Contacts systematically locked up many of its online contact lenses retail competitors into settlement agreements that prohibited the parties from bidding on each other’s trademarks at the search engines. Perhaps…
Ninth Circuit Easily Dismisses YouTube Remove-and-Relocate Case–Darnaa v. Google
This is one of the many lawsuits against YouTube for removing videos and relocating them to a new URL, which resets the view count and breaks inbound links. This case, involving the “musician” Darnaa, generated a little buzz a couple…
Another Suspended Twitter User Loses in Court–Kimbrell v. Twitter
Just last month, I blogged about a suspended Twitter user who lost in court. This pro se lawsuit also fails. It makes me wonder: how many other suspended Twitter users have pending cases in court? This lawsuit is also one…