Who Owns a Disputed Social Media Account? – JLM v. Gutman
This is a case focusing on ownership of social media accounts. The dispute is between bridalwear designer Hayley Paige Gutman and JLM Couture, a bridalwear company. We blogged this case twice before. (See “Social Media Ownership Disputes Part II: Bridal…
Trademark Owner Fucks Around With Keyword Ad Case & Finds Out–Las Vegas Skydiving v. Groupon
I’ve often wondered about the conversations that take place between trademark owner and counsel before filing a keyword advertising lawsuit. How extensively do they discuss the risks? There’s plenty to discuss. You can get bad publicity and alienate customers (and…
1-800 Contacts Loses YET ANOTHER Trademark Lawsuit Over Competitive Keyword Ads–1-800 Contacts v. Warby Parker
1-800 Contacts first appeared on this blog on February 9, 2005, my second day of blogging. 17 years later, I’m still blogging their ignoble trademark lawsuits. 🤡 Some “highlights” of 1-800 Contacts’ trademark jurisprudence over the years: 1-800 Contacts v….
Quick Links from the Past Year, Part 3 (Trademarks)
Initial Interest Confusion It’s 2022 and we’re still dealing with this shit. SMH. Can we please just outright kill the doctrine and spend our time on more meaningful problems? * “the initial interest confusion doctrine…requires a finding of likelihood of…
Too Rusty For Krusty–Nickelodeon v. Rusty Krab Restaurant (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Prof. Alexandra Jane Roberts Remember the Fifth Circuit case from 2018 holding that a real restaurant’s name could infringe trademark rights in the name of a fictional restaurant from the TV show SpongeBob SquarePants, the Krusty Krab?…
Court Dismisses Trademark Claims Over Internal Search Results–Las Vegas Skydiving v. Groupon
Las Vegas Skydiving Adventures offers tandem skydiving under the “Fyrosity” brand. It has never offered its services through Groupon. A search for “skydive Fyrosity” at Groupon says “No matching deals. You may also like ….” and produces search results for…
Departing Employees Rename Their Former Employers’ Facebook Account. That May Be a Problem–La Baguette v. Tito & Tita
This is an employer/ex-employee dispute over a Facebook page. As alleged in the complaint, plaintiffs operated a bakery known as “La Baguette,” and hired defendants to manage aspects of the business. Defendants also managed the social media presence of the…
26 Trademark Academics Oppose the SHOP SAFE Act
[Today, Betsy Rosenblatt, Rebecca Tushnet and I sent the following letter to Congress on behalf of 26 trademark academics (here’s a PDF version). This complements a separate letter sent by 38 organizations and companies also opposing the SHOP SAFE Act….
Trademark Registration of Political Messages for Expressive Merchandise–In re Elster (Guest Blog Post)
By guest blogger Lisa Ramsey, Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law Federal Circuit holds refusal to register a political message for T-shirts violates the First Amendment, but fails to acknowledge that these types of registrations can…
Airline Sues to Stop Popular Web-Scraping Service–American Airlines v. The Points Guy (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Kieran McCarthy Those interested in web scraping legal issues had high hopes that the Supreme Court’s opinion in Van Buren v. United States last summer would provide clear guidelines on which types of online data access were…