If You Don’t Keep Good Records, Don’t Be Surprised if Your TOS Formation Fails in Court–White v. PayPal
“Plaintiffs allege that Honey “misrepresents its ability to find the ‘best discount codes’ for consumers” and instead “prioritizes coupon codes from Honey’s partner merchants,” giving users “inferior discounts, or no discounts at all, while Honey and its merchant partners profit.””…
A SAD Scheme Plaintiff Unsuccessfully Plays an IP Privilege Card–Price v. Schedule A Defendants
All SAD Scheme cases are, by definition, sad. This case achieves even greater depths: it’s Flori-dumb level SAD. * * * The plaintiff, Price, has a trademark registration in the phrase “White Privilege Card,” for novelty plastic identification cards. Ugh….
The Sixth Circuit Wades Into Online TOS Formation (and Leaves Me More Confused Than Ever)–Dahdah v. LowerMyBills
TL;DR: The court provides this overview: LowerMyBills.com refers internet users who are interested in refinancing their home mortgages to affiliated lending partners, including Rocket Mortgage. The website tells users that they will agree to its hyperlinked “Terms of Use”—including a…
2025 Internet Law Year-in-Review
2025 is the Trump 2.0 era, so you won’t find much upbeat news in this Internet Law year-in-review. 10. Are Websites Legally Equivalent to Exploding Coke Bottles? Traditionally, tort law distinguishes between tangible items (chattels) and intangible services. Several doctrines…
Schedule A: Ten Notable Developments in 2025 (Guest Blog Post)
By Sarah Fackrell, Professor of Law at Chicago-Kent College of Law It’s been a busy year on the Schedule A beat. In reflecting on the year, I’ve put together this quick round-up of ten of the top developments, in (rough)…
Texas Judge Enjoins App Store Authentication Law–CCIA and SEAT v. Paxton
This blog post involves two near-identical cases challenging the Texas App Store Accountability Act, Senate Bill 2420 (“SB 2420” or “the Act”), Tex. Bus. & Com. Code § 121.001 et seq. SB 2420 is a robust multi-pronged segregate-and-suppress law that…
Visa Isn’t Liable for Underenforcing Its No-Surcharge Rule–Williams v. Visa
Visa has a rule that merchants can’t impose surcharges on consumers for using their debit cards. However, merchants widely disregard this rule. The plaintiff: alleges that “Visa does not enforce the No Surcharge Rule in a systematic or effective manner,”…
11th Circuit Sidesteps the SAD Scheme’s Problems–Ain Jeem v. Schedule A
The plaintiff enforces Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s IP rights. It is indeed “sad” to see a living legend like Kareem degrade his legacy by participating in a bottom-feeding operation like the SAD Scheme. The plaintiff filed a SAD Scheme case in 2021…
Another Shill Article Tries to Normalize the SAD Scheme
I note the posting of a draft article, which (unfortunately) has been accepted for publication by the Fordham Intellectual Property, Media & Entertainment Law Journal, entitled “Beyond the Brick-and-Mortar Paradigm: The Legal and Procedural Foundations of Schedule A Litigation in…
Court Sanctions Plaintiff’s Lawyer for Unverified Claims That the Defendant Was Hiding–Guangzhou Youlan Technology Co. Ltd. v. Onbrill World
This is a SAD Scheme-adjacent design patent case against an Amazon merchant. I say “adjacent” because the plaintiff’s lawyer apparently cloned-and-revised SAD Scheme templates but made two major variations: (1) the complaint only names one defendant, not hundreds, and (2)…