Ninth Circuit Highlights the Messy Law of Contributory Trademark Infringement Online–YYGM v. RedBubble
Redbubble provides an online marketplace for print-on-demand items. Unlike other print-on-demand vendors, Redbubble outsources everything but the marketing and payment processing functions. Third-party user-merchants upload the images; third-party contract manufacturers and other vendors make and ship the ordered items. This…
An E-Commerce Site Tried to Form Its TOS Three Different Ways. None of Them Worked–Chabolla v. ClassPass
The plaintiffs claim they signed up for a ClassPass membership but got unexpectedly auto-renewed. (ClassPass appears to be an aggregator of third-party fitness classes). ClassPass sought to send the case to arbitration based on its TOS, which it attempted to…
Trademark Extraterritoriality: Abitron v. Hetronic Doesn’t Go the Distance (Guest Blog Post)
By Guest Bloggers Margaret Chon and Christine Haight Farley [Margaret Chon is a Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law, and Christine Haight Farley is a Professor of Law at American University Washington College of Law.] In one…
Armslist Defeats Lawsuits Over Illegal Gun Sales (Without Section 230’s Help)–Webber v. Armslist
Armslist publishes users’ classified ads for guns. Two estates sued Armslist for allegedly facilitating illegal gun sales that led to murders. My blog post on the district court rulings. Section 230’s availability in such situations is uncertain, but on appeal,…
Amazon Isn’t Liable for Selling Suicide “Kits”—McCarthy v. Amazon
This case involves the tragic suicide of two teenagers, both of whom died by consuming sodium nitrite they purchased from a third-party Amazon merchant (Loudwolf). Sodium nitrite has several socially beneficial commercial uses, including being used (in small quantities) as…
A Thumbs-Up Emoji Costs a Canadian Seller $82,000–South West Terminal v. Achter Land
[A special post for my Canadian friends as a belated celebration of Canada Day. 🍁] This case involves a Canadian transaction for flax. The court summarizes: Mr. Mickleborough had a contract drafted for Achter to sell SWT 86 metric tonnes…
Test Buys Don’t Create Personal Jurisdiction Over Amazon Merchant–Oceanside v. Instock
Blogging personal jurisdiction cases isn’t that much fun for me. Nevertheless, this ruling caught my eye. This is an enforcement action over the trademark “Detoxify.” (I’m skipping the obvious trademarkability problems with a descriptive word like this). The defendant is…
Another Jawboning Case Fails in the Ninth Circuit–Kennedy v. Warren
This case involves a book called “The Truth About COVID-19: Exposing the Great Reset, Lockdowns, Vaccine Passports, and the New Normal,” which includes a foreword from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Sen. Warren wrote a letter to Amazon expressing “concerns” about…
Amazon Screws Up Its TOS Amendments (Again)–Jackson v. Amazon
This case involves “Amazon Flex” drivers. Allegedly, “Amazon monitored and wiretapped the drivers’ conversations when they communicated during off hours in closed Facebook groups.” Amazon claimed its TOS mandated arbitration. The Ninth Circuit disagrees. At issue are two versions of…
Do Mandatory Age Verification Laws Conflict with Biometric Privacy Laws?–Kuklinski v. Binance
California passed the California Age-Appropriate Design Code (AADC) nominally to protect children’s privacy, but at the same time, the AADC requires businesses to do an age “assurance” of all their users, children and adults alike. (Age “assurance” requires the business…