Doing Online Reputation Management? Don’t Do It This Way (Forbes Cross-Post)
Recently, I got two identical emails from info@infringex.com sending me a “Notice of Infringement of Defamation.” The notice informs me that a 2012 blog post–written by my perma-guest blogger, Venkat–makes public comments about the purported sender. It further says that…
Online Magazine Gets Section 230 Protection For Third Party Article–AdvanFort v. International Registries
If I didn’t practice Internet law, I might have chosen maritime law. Their disputes are often interesting. This particular case sounds like a movie plotline. AdvanFort provides armed guards to ships worried about piracy (the real kind…you know, on the…
Can Lawyers Buy Keyword Ads On Each Others’ Names At Google? (Forbes Cross-Post)
“Competitive keyword advertising” occurs when a company buys the trademarks of its competition as keywords for search engine marketing. In the 2000s, it was one of the most interesting and hotly-contested issues of Internet Law as trademark owners filed many…
Ripoff Report Gets Easy Section 230 Win In Third Circuit–Obado v. Magedson
This was a really interesting pro se challenge to Section 230. The lower court opinion contained all kinds of gems, including holding that Section 230 applies to Google’s autocomplete and to allegations of search engine manipulation. The Third Circuit’s opinion…
A Fishy Jurisdiction Ruling Involving Mobile Apps–Tomelleri v. MEDL
For those of you who teach the Zatarain’s v. Oak Grove Smokehouse trademark case, you know how much I wanted to stock this blog post with fish puns. Joseph Tomelleri draws fishes, and he sells his illustrations via his website…
California’s Resale Royalty Statute Violates the Dormant Commerce Clause—In Part (Guest Blog Post)
By guest blogger Tyler Ochoa On Tuesday, May 5, an eleven-judge en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit held that California’s Resale Royalty Statute, Civil Code § 986, could not Constitutionally be applied to sales of works of art that…
Some Specific Problems With The Proposed Federal Trade Secret Law (Comments From a Reader)
Recently, David Levine guest-blogged a bibliography about a new federal trade secret law. In response to that post, a reader emailed me the following comments (which, as usual, I’m sharing with permission): __ First, the initial problem is that an…
Blogger Isn’t Liable For Anonymous Reader Comments–Mezzacappa v. O’Hare
Bernie O’Hare ran a blog called “Lehigh Valley Ramblings.” I’m focusing on the court’s treatment of four anonymous comments posted in response to O’Hare’s blogging about Tricia Mezzacappa. In general, bloggers aren’t liable for reader comments per Section 230. See…
Burlap Flower Wraps Aren’t Protectable Trade Dress–Farmgirl v. Bloom That
Farmgirl sells flowers in San Francisco. It wraps its flower arrangements in recycled coffee burlap sacks. Here is an example I found on their website: Farmgirl spurred competition from Bloom That, which replicated Farmgirl’s use of recycled coffee burlap sacks…
Details on the Celebration of Dr. Gail Schlachter Hauser’s Life (Cross-Post From Personal Blog)
[My apologies for cross-posting this from my personal blog, but it’s such an important matter to me that I wanted to share it here as well.] Last week, my mom, Dr. Gail Schlachter Hauser, died tragically and unexpectedly. On May…