May 2009 Quick Links Part 2

By Eric Goldman Blogs and Boards * WSJ: Bloggers, Beware: What You Write Can Get You Sued * j2 Global Communications v. Zilker Ventures, CV 08-07470 SJO (AJWx) (C.D. Cal. April 22, 2009). A consumer review website can putatively qualify…

Shifting Strategies in Patent Law Conference Announcement

By Eric Goldman [Eric’s note: this is a popular annual event–last year’s symposium drew over 200 attendees. This year should also be popular due to the timely topics and impressive speaker’s list. Should be a great event. Hope you can…

Patent Lawsuit Filed Over Google Reader–Priest v. Google

By Eric Goldman Priest v. Google, 1:2008cv12056 (D. Mass. complaint filed Dec. 11, 2008). The Justia page. I normally try to stay away from patent lawsuits, and frankly so many are filed against the major search engines that it would…

Federal Circuit Comes to Santa Clara University Next Week

By Eric Goldman Next week, a three judge panel of the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals will be visiting Santa Clara University and hearing oral arguments in four cases. You can read the briefs of the cases to be heard….

June 2008 Quick Links

By Eric Goldman Trademarks/Domain Names * Utah Lighthouse Ministry v. Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research, 2008 WL 22043807 (10th Cir. May 29, 2008). CMLP writeup. Nice 10th Circuit win for a gripe site against trademark infringement and cybersquatting. This…

May 2008 Quick Links, Part 1 (Trademarks/Domain Names Edition)

By Eric Goldman * Syncsort Inc. v. Innovative Routines Intern., Inc., 2008 WL 1925304 (D.N.J. April 30, 2008). Including a third party trademark in a keyword metatag qualified as nominative use. (Along the same lines, see the Designer Skin case…

Feb. 2008 Quick Links

By Eric Goldman Advertising * BusinessWeek: Monetizing social networking sites isn’t as easy as everyone had hoped, clickthrough rates are through the floor (0.04%!), and ad proliferation on the sites is driving users away. * Wilbur, Kenneth C. and Zhu,…

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…

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…

Patent Contingency Fee Agreements

By Eric Goldman Patent litigation is hot, but I rarely see much discussion about the fee agreements used by patent litigants. So I was very interested to hear Stephen Susman (from the well-known Susman Godfrey firm) speak at the May…