Utah HB 450 Dies in Utah Senate Without a Vote
By Eric Goldman After barely passing the Utah House, Utah HB 450–Utah’s third ill-fated attempt to regulate keyword advertising–died quietly last night when the Utah Senate failed to act on it before the Utah Legislature adjourned for the year. My…
Fifth Circuit Denies Yahoo’s Jurisdictional Appeal in American Airlines Case
By Eric Goldman In re: Yahoo! Inc; Overture Services, Inc., No. 09-10098 (5th Cir. March 11, 2009) In January, the Texas district court denied Yahoo’s request to transfer the American Airlines keyword advertising lawsuit out of Texas and into Yahoo’s…
Utah House Barely Passes HB 450 (Maybe)–UPDATED
By Eric Goldman The Utah legislature is continuing its embarrassing third attempt to regulate keyword advertising. Today, after making a ticky-tack amendment, the Utah House passed HB 450 and sent the bill to the Senate. However, the House was sharply…
Utah Trying to Regulate Keyword Advertising….Again!? Utah HB 450
By Eric Goldman When I first heard that the Utah legislature is considering yet another law to regulate keyword advertising, I thought: Are you kidding me? After all, Utah has pursued these regulations twice with disastrous results. The first time,…
Online Resale of Expired Cosmetics May Be Trademark Infringement–Mary Kay v. Weber
By Eric Goldman Mary Kay, Inc. v. Weber, 2009 WL 426470 (N.D. Tex. Feb. 20, 2009). The Justia page. There are a number of Mary Kay meta-sites tracking this and other Mary Kay lawsuits. For more filings and commentary on…
TradeComet Sues Google for Antitrust Violations
By Eric Goldman TradeComet.com LLC v. Google, Inc., 09 CIV 1400 (SDNY complaint filed Feb. 17, 2009). The Justia page. TradeComet, which operates the SourceTool.com website, has sued Google for a variety of antitrust violations. As is typically the case…
Google Street View Case Dismissed–Boring v. Google
By Eric Goldman Boring v. Google, Inc., 2:08-cv-00694-ARH (W.D. Pa. Feb. 17, 2009) You may recall the Boring case from last Spring. A Pennsylvania couple sued because Google’s camera car drove up their private driveway and the resulting pictures were…
Yahoo/Overture Sued for Search Results Snippets Containing Plaintiff’s Name–Stayart v. Yahoo
By Eric Goldman Stayart v. Yahoo!, 2:2009cv00116 (E.D. Wis. complaint filed Feb. 5, 2009). The Justia page. Bev Stayart appears to be proud of her accomplishments. As the complaint recounts her credentials, we are informed that she has an MBA…
Yahoo’s Sale of Competitive Keyword Ads Isn’t False Designation of Origin–Heartbrand Beef v. Lobel’s
By Eric Goldman Heartbrand Beef, Inc. v. Lobel’s of New York, LLC, 2009 WL 311087 (S.D.Tex. Feb. 5, 2009). The Justia page. Heartbrand sells Akaushi beef, a special and very expensive Japanese variety of beef. Heartbrand brought an enforcement action…
2008 Cyberlaw Year-in-Review
By Eric Goldman It’s a sign of my schedule that I’m just now getting to this, and this post will be more pithy than I initially conceived. This post recaps some of the Cyberlaw highlights from last year. Frankly, the…