Yet Another NY Court Says Keyword Ads & Metatags Aren’t TM Use in Commerce–S&L Vitamins v. Australian Gold
By Eric Goldman S & L Vitamins, Inc. v. Australian Gold, Inc., 2:05-cv-1217 (E.D.N.Y. Sept. 30, 2007) If it wasn’t so painful for all involved, I would enjoy watching the legal contortions of companies whose outdated business models are being…
September 2007 Quick Links Part I
By Eric Goldman Marketing * From the NYT: There are 200+ auto repair shops in the “Iron Triangle” area in New York, and apparently they compete fiercely with each other, shouting out price quotes as cars needing repairs drive by….
“Making Available” as Copyright Infringement–Capitol v. Thomas
By Ethan Ackerman Capitol v. Thomas has been widely covered (even simul-blogged) as the first RIAA copyright lawsuit against an individual P2P downloader to reach a jury trial. But, to poorly paraphrase Stephen Sondheim, “a funny thing happened on the…
August 2007 Quick Links, Part I
By Eric Goldman Search Engines * Google extended its ad serving technology to consider a user’s past search phrases in addition to their current search term. * Greg Linden: “Google is teasing too many lions.” * BusinessWeek: Some VCs are…
Search Engine Strategies Copyright and Trademark Panel
By Eric Goldman Today I participated in the Copyright and Trademark panel at Search Engine Strategies in San Jose, along with Clarke Walton, Eve Chaurand-Fraser of Ask, Mary Berk of Microsoft and Debra Wilcox of Baker & Hostetler. As usual,…
Lemley on Online Safe Harbors
By Eric Goldman Mark Lemley, Rationalizing Internet Safe Harbors Mark Lemley has weighed in on an topic near and dear to my heart–secondary liability online. He advances two principal arguments in his paper. First, it would make sense to harmonize…
2007 Cyberspace Law Syllabus
By Eric Goldman I’ve posted my 2007 Cyberlaw syllabus. Unlike the past few years, which were a little slow cyberlaw-wise, the past 12 months saw a lot of important developments. Let me recap some of changes I made to my…
Taking Intangible Electronic Files is Criminal Fraud–NM v. Kirby
By Eric Goldman New Mexico v. Kirby, 2007-NMSC-034 (N.M. June 13, 2007) This is a very confusing case, so maybe you can help me figure out what it means. At minimum, this case highlights the problems that can be arise…
July 2007 Quick Links, Part I
By Eric Goldman Search Engines * According to this study, up to 40% of search queries are “re-finding queries” (i.e., the searcher is trying to re-find previously viewed information). The implication: “Because people repeat queries so frequently, search engines should…
Third Circuit Bounces Lawsuit Over Google Groups–Parker v. Google
By Eric Goldman Parker v. Google, Inc., No. 06-3074 (3d Cir. July 10, 2007) Parker v. Google was one of the troika of district court opinions involving Google and copyright from Q1 2006 (along with the Perfect 10 and Field…