Google Crushes Home Decor Center’s Trademark Challenge to AdWords
By Eric Goldman Home Decor Center, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 2:12-cv-05706-GW-SH (C.D. Cal. May 9, 2013) Home Decor Center sued Google in the wake of the Fourth Circuit’s Rosetta Stone ruling. The lawsuit did not go well for it. Recently,…
Suing Over Keyword Advertising Is A Bad Business Decision For Trademark Owners–General Steel v. Chumley (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman General Steel Domestic Sales, LLC v. Chumley, 2013 WL 1900562 (D. Colo. May 7, 2013) Trademark owners rarely win keyword advertising lawsuits in court. Reinforcing this conclusion, another trademark owner lost a trial over competitive keyword advertising…
Judge’s Facebook Friendship With Victim’s Parent Does not Taint Proceeding — Youkers v. Texas
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Youkers v . Texas, No. 05-11-01407-CR (Tx. Ct. App. May 15, 2013) [pdf] Youkers was convicted for tampering with evidence after he was indicted for assaulting his girlfriend who was pregnant with his child. He entered…
UK’s New Defamation Law May Accelerate the Death of Anonymous User-Generated Content Internationally (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman Historically, United Kingdom defamation law has been victim-favorable. In an effort to modernize its defamation law, the UK Parliament recently enacted the Defamation Act 2013 (royal assent was given on April 25). The act generally makes it harder for…
Perfect 10 Gets a Surprising Partial Sumary Judgment in 512 Case–Perfect 10 v. Yandex
By Eric Goldman Perfect 10, Inc. v. Yandex N.V., 2013 WL 1899851 (N.D.Cal. May 7, 2013) Few names strike as much fear–and derision–among Internet lawyers as Perfect 10. Perhaps the quintessential Internet Law plaintiff of the 2000s decade, Perfect 10…
Copyright Trolling Is Really Hard to Do Profitably–Righthaven v. Hoehn
By Eric Goldman Righthaven LLC v. Hoehn, 2013 WL 1908876 (9th Cir. May 9, 2013) It’s been a rough week for copyright trolls. First, Judge Wright destroyed the Prenda Law enterprise in a sanction-filled opinion. Second, today the Ninth Circuit…
Yahoo’s User Agreement Fails in Battle Over Dead User’s Email Account–Ajemian v. Yahoo
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Ajemian v. Yahoo!, 12-P-178 (Mass. Ct. App. May 7, 2013) This is a very interesting dispute that raises the question of ownership over digital assets after a person’s death. Plaintiffs, John Ajemian’s (the decedent’s) executors and…
Suing Like It’s 2009: Parts.com Sues Google and Yahoo for Keyword Advertising
By Eric Goldman Parts.com v. Google, 3:13-cv-01074-JLS-WMC (S.D. Cal. complaint filed May 6, 2013); and Parts.com v. Yahoo, 3:13-cv-01078-AJB-JMA (S.D. Cal. complaint filed May 6, 2013) _____ In the immediate wake of the Second Circuit’s Rescuecom ruling in 2009, about…
Crazy SOPA-Like Attempt to Hold International Banks Liable for Pharmacy Spam Fails on Jurisdiction Grounds–Unspam v. Chernuk
[By Venkat Balasubramani with comments from Eric Goldman] Unspam Technologies, Inc. v. Chernuk, 2013 WL 1849080 (4th Cir. May 4, 2013) We’ve mentioned “Project Honeypot,” the efforts of a company (founded by Matthew Prince) to track down and prosecute spammers….
Assessing Winners and Losers in Google’s Worldwide Antitrust Battles (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman Recently, the European Commission announced details of a proposed antitrust settlement with Google (the full commitments). Google’s competitors now have the opportunity to publicly whine about the deal as part of the “market testing” procedural step. I doubt…