More Kardashian Drama: A Legal Fight Over Ownership of the Kimoji Emoji Set–Liebensohn v. Kardashian (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Gabriella Ziccarelli [Eric’s introductory note: I have made a personal life choice to ignore the entire Kardashian enterprise and their constant and often faux drama (except that I have occasionally mocked the Kardashians in my law school…
Court Tosses Antitrust Claims That Internet Giants Are Biased Against Conservatives–Freedom Watch v. Google
Apologies if I’m not being appropriately empathetic, but I think lawsuits alleging that Internet giants are biased against conservatives are stupid and counterproductive. They are premised on factually unsupportable assertions of bias, and most of these plaintiffs would enthusiastically cheer…
Do Adjacent Organic Search Results Constitute Trademark Infringement? Of Course Not…But…–America CAN! v. CDF
A charitable fundraising organization, America CAN!, has a registered trademark in the phrase “Write off the car, not the Kid.” The organization purports to help the education of high risk youths, and it claims that “100% of the net proceeds go…
TTAB Denies Trademark Registration for #MagicNumber108 Tagmark–In re DePorter (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Alexandra Jane Roberts After 1908, beleaguered Chicago Cubs fans waited 108 long years for their team to win the world series again. And Grant DePorter, whose application to register #MagicNumber108 as a trademark for shirts was at…
Tweet Containing Question Mark Isn’t Defamatory–Boulger v. Woods
In 2016, the Chicago Tribune published a photo of a woman giving a Nazi salute at a Trump rally. Twitter user @voxday wrongly identified the plaintiff as that woman. Shortly afterwards, actor James Woods, who then had 350,000 twitter users,…
Section 230 Preempts Unfair Competition Law Claim–Taylor v. Twitter
This is an extraordinary opinion. I can’t recall another opinion where the judge so candidly admits that he made both procedural and substantive mistakes. As troubling as those mistakes were, it actually gives me great confidence to see a judge…
Supreme Court Requires Completed Copyright Registration Before Filing Suit–Fourth Estate Public Benefit v. Wall-Street (Guest Blog Post)
Guest Blog Post by Tyler Ochoa On March 4, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com, LLC, No. 17-571, 139 S.Ct. ____, 2019 U.S. LEXIS 1730. The case involved the interpretation of section 411(a) of the…
Twitter Defeats Yet Another Lawsuit from a Suspended User–Cox v. Twitter
Cox alleged tweeted: “Islam is a Philosophy of Conquests wrapped in Religious Fantasy & uses Racism, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Mutilation, Torture, Authoritarianism, Homicide, Rape . . . Peaceful Muslims are Marginal Muslims who are Heretics & Hypocrites to Islam. Islam is…
Filtering Software Defeats Another Lawsuit–PC Drivers v. Malwarebytes
I blogged about this case in September. PC Drivers makes software that claims to help speed up users’ computers. Malwarebytes blocked it as a “potentially unwanted program,” or PUP. Litigation ensued. In the prior ruling, Malwarebytes won big, but then…
It’s Really Hard to Win a Motion to Dismiss Based on 512(c)–Myeress v. Buzzfeed
512(c) and 230 diverge in key procedural respects, including the implications of scienter for motions to dismiss. Section 230(c)(1) has no scienter standards, so defendants can win on motions to dismiss despite virtually any scienter allegations. In contrast, Section 512(c)’s…