Ellen DeGeneres Defeats Lawsuit Over Breast Pun–TiTi Pierce v. Warner Bros
The Ellen Show, featuring Ellen DeGeneres, runs a periodic segment called “What’s Wrong with These Signs? Signs.” In Feb. 2016, the segment included a sign for “Nipple Convalescent Home” followed by the plaintiff’s real estate yard sign, displaying her name…
University Rejection of Students’ Marijuana-Themed T-Shirt Violates First Amendment–Gerlich v. Leath
Iowa State (ISU) officially recognizes a student chapter for NORML, a marijuana advocacy group. All ISU student groups can use ISU trademarks on merchandise if they comply with the “Guidelines for University Trademark Use by Student and Campus Organizations,” as…
Copyright Office Q&A Session About The New Online DMCA Designated Agents Directory
By guest blogger Franklin Graves Last week, at the ABA’s Midyear Meeting in Miami, Florida, the Section of Intellectual Property Law’s Computer Program & New Technologies Committee hosted a Q&A event with the U.S. Copyright Office to discuss the new online DMCA Designated…
First Amendment Protects Google’s De-Indexing of “Pure Spam” Websites–e-ventures v. Google
e-ventures does SEO. Google determined that e-ventures “egregiously” violated its webspam guidelines. As a result, Google de-indexed all of e-ventures’ sites. e-ventures claims Google had bad motivations for the de-indexing decisions. The evidence didn’t support this claim: “e-ventures’ own consultant…
Melania Loses Defamation Lawsuit on Jurisdiction Grounds–Trump v. Tarpley
As we know, our president frequently threatens defamation lawsuits, only occasionally delivers on those threats (remember the guarantee to sue the women who accused him of sexual assault?), sometimes brings SLAPPs when he does actually sue for defamation (remember when…
Amazon Defeats Lawsuit Over Its Keyword Ad Purchases–Lasoff v. Amazon
Lasoff owns Ingrass, which makes artificial turf. He claims he’s losing business to “cheaper, counterfeit” versions of Ingrass. (The opinion uses the term “counterfeit,” though it probably means knockoffs). He objects to the fact that Amazon runs keyword ads for…
The DTSA’s Ex Parte Seizure Order: The “Ex” Stands for “Extraordinary” (Guest Blog Post)
[By guest blogger Paul M. Mersino. Paul is an attorney with the Detroit-based law firm Butzel Long, P.C. He specializes in Trade Secret disputes throughout the nation. He defended against the first ex parte seizure application in the nation under the DTSA…
Actress in Viral Video Can’t Prevent Video From Being Made Into an Advertisement–Roberts v. Bliss
Bliss produced a viral video called “10 Hours Walking in NYC as a Woman” featuring actress Shoshana Roberts. You probably saw this video when it came out; it has been viewed over 40M times. The video shows how random strangers…
Section 230 Helps Snapchat Defeat Personal Injury Claim Due to ‘Speed Filter’–Maynard v. McGee
Snapchat (a/k/a “Snap,” though I can’t say that name without thinking first of this and this) has a “speed filter,” an app that tracks users’ speed. Complaints emerged online that the filter motivated Snapchat users to drive recklessly. The complaint…
Trump Can’t Commit Twibel Because He Routinely ‘Deflects Serious Consideration’–Jacobus v. Trump
A confession: I do not follow @RealDonaldTrump at Twitter because I have a strict policy against following trolls. Life is too short. As we all know, Trump regularly engages in many disfavored tweeting practices: ad hominen attacks; self-promotion; dissemination of…