What Does a Hologram Trademark Signify When the Hologram Isn’t There?–Upper Deck v. Pixels
Pixels is a print-on-demand vendor. Pixels’ users have uploaded various images associated with Michael Jordan sports trading cards. Here’s an example: If this were a framed original of the trading card, the First Sale doctrine should apply. If it were…
Section 230’s Application to Account Terminations, CSAM, and More
The Section 230 cases keep coming faster than I can blog them (the first 3 hit my alerts in a single day). Weiss v. Google LLC, 2026 WL 733788 (Cal. App. Ct. March 16, 2026) Weiss’ business started running financial…
Another Reminder: Lawsuits Over Competitive Keyword Ads Are Stupid
This case involves two competitors that buy homes for cash: plaintiff Brothers Buy Homes and defendant John Buys Bay Area Homes. The defendant bought competitive keyword ads. Initially, the defendant displayed the plaintiff’s trademark in the ads, apparently due to…
Free-Trial Commercial Database Defeats Publicity Rights Claim–LaFleur v. Yardi
Two preliminary notes: 1) This opinion is by a TAFS judge (Trump-appointed, Federalist Society). 2) The right of publicity doctrine is incoherent, and this opinion illustrates that. * * * Yardi operates PropertyShark, which publishes a commercial database of searchable…
What Does It Mean to Make a Voice Call in a Post-Telephone World?–Howard v. RNC
In 1991, Congress enacted the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). The TCPA is a telephone exceptionalist statute–by design, the TCPA regulates telemarketing phone calls differently than other forms of marketing. I considered some implications of advertising medium regulatory exceptionalism in…
DMCA 512(c) Safe Harbor Applies to Embedding–Harrington v. Pinterest
This is a long-running class action copyright case (filed in 2020!) led by the photographer Blaine Harrington (now deceased). The plaintiffs complain about user-uploaded photos appearing in Pinterest’s off-website notifications to its users (e.g., email, in-app, and mobile push). This…
A Massive Roundup of Section 230 Decisions
This post also owes its origins to my 2-week trip to China in June. Section 230 decisions started backing up while I was on the trip and never stopped accruing. In total, this post covers about 30 decisions in 7k+…
District Court Again Rejects Plaintiffs’ Attempts to Manufacture Common Law Notice-and-Takedown Duties–Bogard v. TikTok
This is a quirky lawsuit designed to subvert Section 230, the First Amendment, and traditional common law. I previously summarized the case: This lawsuit purports to focuses on the allegedly defective operation of the services’ reporting tools, but the plaintiffs’…
Post-Mortem of a Misguided Logo Trademark Lawsuit–LegalForce v. Internet Brands
The plaintiff in this case is LegalForce, Raj Abhyanker CEO, which run the notorious trademark registration operation Trademarkia. How notorious? Trademarkia’s own web site has a page entitled “Is Trademarkia a Scam? Debunking Hearsay,” which brings to mind the old…
The Initial Interest Confusion Doctrine Refuses to Die
Continuing my recent critical coverage of the initial interest confusion doctrine, here are a few more rulings on the subject. Hoffmann Brothers Heating and Air Conditioning, Inc. v. Hoffmann Air Conditioning & Heating, LLC, 2025 WL 2587109 (8th Cir. Sept….