2023 Quick Links: Social Media
…awarded Facebook $683k in attorneys fees. Ouch. * CNN: Mark Zuckerberg personally rejected Meta’s proposals to improve teen mental health, court documents allege * WSJ: Facebook Wanted Out of Politics….
2023 Quick Links: IP, Keyword Ads
…Northern District of Illinois. This logic seemingly extends equally to trademark cases… * Politico: “Tech giant battle means doom for small news outlets, Trudeau was warned.” Canada’s C-18 “link tax”…
Hot Take on the Wavy Baby Decision (Guest Blog Post)
…it “uses another’s trademark as a trademark—… as a source identifier.” “Trading on the goodwill of the trademark” and using the trademark as a source indicator are two very different…
Evaluating the Constitutionality of Viewpoint-Neutral Trademark Registration Laws That Do Not Restrict Speech—Vidal v. Elster (Guest Blog Post)
…photographs, drawings, or paintings of people). If trademark applicants like Elster can register other people’s names or images as marks for clothing without their consent, the trademark registrant can invoke…
Facebook Faces Contributory Trademark Liability for Marketplace Listings–Car-Freshner v. Meta
…the design. Trademark Claims Car-Freshner submitted trademark takedown notices to Facebook and Instagram over four user-listed items. Allegedly, Facebook and Instagram refused the takedown demands because the trademark violations weren’t…
Section 230 Applies to Nextdoor Consumer Reviews–Duffer v. Nextdoor
…This ruling isn’t surprising at all, but I was surprised that a lawyer (Mark Ellis O’Brien of Lunenburg, MA) willing to bring this case in the face of the OBVIOUS…
In a SAD Scheme Case, Court Rejects Injunction Over “Emoji” Trademark
…screenshot above doesn’t constitute trademark infringement. (In my SAD Scheme paper, I characterize the poop emoji mug example as “not a serious trademark claim”). Indeed, in my opinion, asserting trademark…
Schedule A (SAD Scheme) Plaintiff Sanctioned for “Fraud on the Court”–Xped v. Respect the Look
…had done so, but it hadn’t. “When the Court asked how Expeditee could have a trademark infringement claim if Respect the Look removed the mark, Jones appeared to change his…
Court Denies Injunction in Competitive Keyword Ad Lawsuit–Nursing CE Central v. Colibri
…to achieve that result–couldn’t it have used Google’s trademark policy to prevent its trademark from appear in the ad copy? And even if not, the trademark owner’s push for a…
Web Scraping for Me, But Not for Thee (Guest Blog Post)
…dig. Some forms of data are protected by copyright, trademark, or another cognizable forms of intellectual property. But most of the data on the Internet isn’t easily protectible as intellectual…