By Eric Goldman Lifestyle Lift Holding, Inc. v. RealSelf Inc., 2:08-cv-10089-PJD-RSW (complaint filed Jan. 7, 2008 and answer/counterclaims filed March 3, 2008) [disclosure note: I have done some legal work for RealSelf, including some limited counseling on this lawsuit] No…
By Eric Goldman Advertising * BusinessWeek: Monetizing social networking sites isn’t as easy as everyone had hoped, clickthrough rates are through the floor (0.04%!), and ad proliferation on the sites is driving users away. * Wilbur, Kenneth C. and Zhu,…
By Eric Goldman You may recall Rescuecom v. Google, where the district court dismissed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Google for selling trademarked keywords because the sales lacked the requisite use in commerce. We are all watching this case closely…
By Eric Goldman At SMX West, I participated on a panel about recent search engine law developments with Clarke Walton, Sarah Bird and Jeffrey Rohrs as moderator. Jeff asked me to address click fraud developments, so here’s a recap of…
By Eric Goldman Curran v. Amazon.com, Inc., 2008 WL 472433 (S.D. W.Va. Feb. 19, 2008) Erik Curran was a National Guard soldier who served in “a combat zone.” For reasons unclear from this opinion, he was photographed by an unspecified…
By Eric Goldman You may recall that last month we all had a good laugh over self-proclaimed Cyberlawyer Eric Menhart’s trademark application for the term “CyberLaw” to describe his Cyberlaw practice. (In case it wasn’t clear, we weren’t laughing WITH…
By Eric Goldman As you know, a big issue in online trademark law is the meaning and import of a “trademark use in commerce” requirement. To win its case, a trademark plaintiff must show that the defendant made a use…
By Eric Goldman Whitney Information Network v. Xcentric Ventures, No. 2:04-cv-47-FtM-34SPC (M.D. Fla. Feb. 15, 2008) On remand from the 11th Circuit, the district court once again found that 47 USC 230 protects Rip-off Report and related entities from a…
By Eric Goldman A.V. v. iParadigms, LLC, No. 07-0293 (E.D. Va. removal from trial docket Jan. 9, 2008) iParadigms, the operators of the Turnitin plagiarism detection tool, issued a confusing press release earlier this week announcing that the lawsuit against…
By Eric Goldman Mitra B. Sarkar et al., Intermediaries and Cybermediaries: A Continuing Role for Mediating Players in the Electronic Marketplace, J. COMPUTER MEDIATED COMMUNICATIONS, 1995 I’ve been working on my Brand Spillovers paper, which in part addresses the trademark…