By Eric Goldman Guest blogger John Ottaviani recently dropped by to offer his perspectives on 2009’s top Cyberlaw developments. While I like his list a lot, I independently developed my own top 10 list that has a different emphasis. You…
By Eric Goldman I will do a more comprehensive year in review for Cyberlaw generally, but I thought it would be fun to take a close look at how 47 USC 230 fared in 2009. This is the first full…
By Eric Goldman Crawford v. Consumer Depot, Inc., 05-3242 (Tenn. County Ct. Dec. 9, 2009) Essex and Consumer Depot are competitors in the eBay consignment business. According to the court, prior to 2005 Essex used to allow its employees to…
By Eric Goldman Project DOD, Inc. v. Federici, 2009 WL 4910320 (D. Me. Dec. 13, 2009) 17 USC 512(f) creates a cause of action for sending bogus copyright takedown notices. In a regulatory environment where service providers have itchy trigger…
By Eric Goldman Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., v. Fung, 2:06-cv-05578-SVW-JC (C.D. Cal. Dec. 21, 2009) In a potentially significant ruling that got a little lost in the Christmas rush, a federal district court ruled on summary judgment that the “torrent…
By Eric Goldman Nemet Chevrolet Ltd. v. ConsumerAffairs.com, Inc., 2009 WL 5126224 (4th Cir. Dec. 29, 2009) Introduction Citing 47 USC 230, today the Fourth Circuit upheld a 12(b)(6) dismissal of defamation and related claims against a consumer review website….
By Eric Goldman King Pharmaceuticals, Inc., v ZymoGenetics, Inc., 2009 WL 4931238 (E.D. Tenn. Dec. 10, 2009). Seattle Trademark Lawyer has some background. This case involves the cutthroat (sorry) world of blood clotting drugs. King Pharmaceuticals sells bovine (cow) thrombin,…
By Eric Goldman Copyright * Want Ad Digest Inc. v. Display Advertising Inc. (N.D.N.Y. Sept. 3, 2009). A classified ads publisher wants to stop a competitor from republishing its classified ads. The court said that advertisers, not the publisher, generally…
By Eric Goldman Trademarks/Domain Names * Yahoo and Mary Kay settled Mary Kay’s trademark lawsuit over Yahoo’s email shortcuts. * uBID Inc. v. The GoDaddy Group Inc., No. 09-cv-2123 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 5, 2009). uBid’s anti-domain name parking lawsuit failed…
By Eric Goldman Blockowicz v. Williams, 1:09-cv-03955 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 21, 2009) Last month, I wrote about the interaction between 47 USC 230 and FRCP 65. FRCP 65 says that anyone acting in concert with a litigant is obligated to…