Brand Spillovers Talk

By Eric Goldman Yesterday, at the IP Scholars Conference at Boalt, I presented my paper currently titled “Brand Spillovers.” This is the evolution of my project from last year I was calling Trademark Adjacency. I’m still trying to think through…

Whitney Information v. Xcentric Update

By Eric Goldman Whitney Information Network v. Xcentric Ventures, 2006 WL 2243041 (11th Cir. Aug 1, 2006) I previously blogged on this case, where the operators of ripoffreport.com and ripoffrevenge.com won a 230 defense in district court. However, the judge…

Jews for Jesus v. Google Lawsuit Settles

By Eric Goldman Jews for Jesus v. Google, Inc., 05-CV-10684 (SDNY voluntary dismissal filed July 26, 2006) You may recall the lawsuit filed by Jews for Jesus against Google in December. The lawsuit involved a BlogSpot user who created a…

eBay Not Liable for Defamatory Feedback–Sturm v. eBay

By Eric Goldman Sturm v. eBay, No. 1-06-CV-057926 (Cal. Superior Ct. July 27, 2006) [sorry, my copies are pretty poor: page 1, page 2] Your mother always said “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” This…

Amazon’s Display of Book Cover Doesn’t Violate Publicity Rights—Almeida v. Amazon.com

By Eric Goldman Almeida v. Amazon.com, Inc., 2006 U.S. APP. LEXIS 17989 (11th Cir. July 18, 2006) Introduction Product photos on e-commerce websites’ product pages are a notorious liability trap. During my tenure at Epinions, product page photos were the…

Google Click Fraud Settlement Approved

By Eric Goldman The Arkansas judge approved the settlement in the Lane’s Gifts and Collectibles v. Google case. Ruling here. Google’s announcement here. For reasons I’ve explained before, this is a Big Win for Google (and, not a bad payday…

Send in the Clowns’ (Lawyers)

By Eric Goldman In response to parental demands, some clowns wear (without permission) costumes that imitate Barney the dinosaur, Bob the Builder, Thomas the Tank Engine, Clifford the Big Red Dog and other cartoon characters as part of their birthday…

Blog Law Recap

By Eric Goldman Spring was a busy time for blog law! This post recap some blog law resources: * My talk on blogs and intellectual property at the Milwaukee Bar Association (newly posted) * Notes from my talk on blog…

Yahoo Click Fraud Settlement Preliminary Approval

By Eric Goldman Checkmate Strategic Group, Inc. v. Yahoo, Inc., No. 2:05-CV-04588-CAS-FMO (C.D. Cal. preliminary settlement approved June 28, 2006) I’m a little late blogging this, but Yahoo has gotten preliminary approval to settle its click fraud lawsuits. The basic…

Google Click Fraud Report

By Eric Goldman In preparation for the court’s final approval of the settlement in the Lane’s Gifts v. Google click fraud case, the parties hired an expert to assess Google’s click fraud control mechanisms. The report can be found here….