Ninth Circuit Kills Contributory ACPA Cybersquatting Doctrine–Petronas v. GoDaddy
A domain name registrant transferred the petronastower.net and petronastowers.net domain names into GoDaddy and used GoDaddy’s name forwarding service to direct them to (NSFW) canfunchat.com. Petronas asked GoDaddy to turn over the domain names to Petronas. GoDaddy declined. Petronas sued,…
Previewing Lexmark vs Static Control, A Rare Supreme Court Case On False Advertising (Forbes Cross-Post)
[Introductory note: Today the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Lexmark v. Static Controls case. The transcript. Yesterday at Forbes, I posted a case preview. I’m sharing that here with you now; it’s still useful context-setting for the oral…
Another Keyword Advertising Lawsuit Unceremoniously Dismissed–Infostream v. Avid
Infostream Group Inc. v. Avid Life Media Inc., 2013 WL 6018030 (C.D. Cal. Nov. 12, 2013) There is an active, long-standing and wide-ranging litigation war being waged between two groups of websites in the “sugar daddy“/”sugar baby” hook-up category. I…
Fake LinkedIn Profile May Cause Trademark Infringement – Avepoint v. Axceler
Avepoint, Inc. v. Power Tools, Inc. d/b/a Axceler, 7:13CV00035 (W.D. Va. Nov. 7, 2013) Avepoint and Axceler are competitors providing “infrastructure management and governance software platforms for Microsoft Sharepoint products and technologies.” Avepoint alleged that Axceler denigrated Avepoint online. Specifically,…
Regional Trademark Owner Can’t Block Junior User’s Internet Presence–Dudley v. HealthSource (Catch-up Post)
[Eric’s note: I hoped to blog this at Forbes last year and just ran out of time. The case addresses such a classic Internet trademark law question that it’s worth sharing even at this late date.] Dudley v. Healthsource Chiropractic,…
App Stores Aren’t Liable For Third Party Apps–Evans v. HP (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman Evans v. Hewlett-Packard Co., 2013 WL 4426359 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 15, 2013) Due to the growing importance of mobile devices, app stores are among the most powerful intermediaries in the Internet ecosystem. With great power comes great…
Another Keyword Advertising Lawsuit Fails–Allied Interstate v. Kimmel & Silverman
By Eric Goldman Allied Interstate LLC v. Kimmel & Silverman P.C., 2013 WL 4245987 (SDNY August 12, 2013) This opinion isn’t earth-shattering but it provides a useful illustration of what I’m seeing. The plaintiff is a debt collection service. The…
More Evidence That Competitive Keyword Advertising Benefits Trademark Owners (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman Many trademark owners hate that rivals can bid on Google AdWords ads triggered by their trademarks, a process I call “competitive keyword advertising.” Trademark owners (and many judges) often assume that a Google search on a trademark…
Rationalizing (?) the Hart and Keller v. EA Sports Publicity Rights Rulings (Guest Blog Post)
By Guest Blogger Tyler Ochoa [Eric’s note: this is a long blog post from my colleague Tyler. It does a great job demonstrating that the interplay between the First Amendment and the publicity rights is complete anarchy, which isn’t surprising…
Recap of Stanford E-Commerce Conference Panel on Takedown Notices
By Eric Goldman Last month, I attended Stanford Law School’s annual E-commerce Law Conference, one of my favorite conferences of the year because of its subject material and the chance to hang out with so many friends. This year, the…