Yet Another Ruling That Competitive Keyword Ad Lawsuits Are Stupid–Louisiana Pacific v. James Hardie (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman Louisiana Pacific Corp. v. James Hardie Building Products, Inc., 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 162980 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 14, 2012). The initial complaint. The amended complaint filed after this ruling. It’s been surreal watching plaintiff-side trademark lawyers lament…
AmeriGas Gives Up Its Lawsuit Against PissedConsumer
By Eric Goldman AmeriGas and Opinion Corp. (PissedConsumer) have settled their case. Law360 report. My prior blog post on a preliminary ruling in this case. I blog about settlements only occasionally, but I thought this settlement was interesting for two…
Another Google AdWords Advertiser Defeats Trademark Infringement Lawsuit–CollegeSource v. AcademyOne (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman CollegeSource, Inc. v. AcademyOne, Inc., 2012 WL 5269213 (E.D. Pa. October 25, 2012) Over the last dozen years, there have been countless trademark lawsuits over competitive keyword advertising (i.e., when a company buys its competitor’s trademark to display…
Intellectual Property on the Internet: A Brief Comparison of the Current Situation in Europe and the United States (Guest Blog Post)
by Guest Blogger Pablo García Mexía, J.D., Ph.D [Visiting Professor of Internet Law, The College of William & Mary. English translation by Morgan G. Fletcher, B.A. Cornell, William & Mary Law School, Class of 2014. The original Spanish version of…
With Rosetta Stone Settlement, Google Gets Closer to Legitimizing Billions of AdWords Revenue (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman After 3+ years of litigation, Google ($GOOG) and Rosetta Stone ($RST) settled Rosetta Stone’s trademark lawsuit over Google AdWords. The settlement terms are confidential, but a joint statement published in Reuters says that the parties will “meaningfully collaborate…
Google Gets Unwanted Ruling in AdWords Trademark Lawsuit–CYBERsitter v. Google
By Eric Goldman CYBERsitter LLC v. Google, Inc., 2012 WL 5873650 (C.D. Cal. Oct. 24, 2012) This is one of three remaining trademark lawsuits against Google for AdWords. The other two pending suits are Rosetta Stone and Home Decor Center;…
Google Defeats Trademark Challenge to Its AdWords Service–Jurin v. Google (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman Jurin v. Google, Inc., 2012 WL 5011007 (E.D. Cal. October 17, 2012). Google ($GOOG) makes billions of dollars a year selling AdWords ads triggered by third party trademarks. Over the past decade, trademark owners have brought about 20…
Q3 2012 Quick Links, Part 1 (Trademarks/Domain Names, Patents, Trade Secrets)
By Eric Goldman and Jake McGowan Trademarks/Domain Names * AdAge: “Consumers Don’t Really Know Who Sponsors the Olympics.” This reminds us that trying to protect against “sponsorship confusion” is futile. For example: 16% believed Google sponsors the Olympics; and of…
Battle Over LinkedIn Account Between Employer and Employee Largely Gutted–Eagle v. Morgan
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani, with comments from Eric] Eagle v. Morgan, 2012 WL 4739436 (E.D. Pa.; Oct. 4, 2012) We’ve repeatedly posted about employer-employee (or ex-employee) disputes involving social media accounts (PhoneDog; Maremont; Kremer; Insynq). Eagle v. Morgan is in…
Latest “Hot Topics in Internet Law” Talk Slides
By Eric Goldman Earlier this month, I spoke at the “IP and the Internet” conference sponsored by the California State Bar’s IP Section on the perennial favorite topic, “Hot Topics in Internet Law.” My talk slides. Given the conference’s theme,…