Lawyer Rating Service Sued–Browne v. Avvo
By Eric Goldman Browne v. Avvo, CV7 920 (W.D. Wash. complaint filed June 14, 2007) You may have heard about Avvo, the latest entrant in the suddenly crowded field of lawyer ratings/rankings. Avvo pulls together a variety of third party…
May 2007 Quick Links
By Eric Goldman Spam * MySpace Inc. v. The Globe.com Inc., No. CV 06-3391 RGK (C.D. Cal. Feb. 27, 2007). This case has some personal interest because theglobe.com was one of my flagship clients before I left the law firm…
Perfect 10 v. CCBill Update: Ninth Circuit Denies En Banc Rehearing
By Eric Goldman The Ninth Circuit has denied an en banc rehearing in Perfect 10 v. CCBill. In doing so, the court amended its opinion to reinforce that it really, really meant that 47 USC 230 preempts all state IP…
Click Fraud Resources
By Eric Goldman I’m a little surprised that click fraud remains such a hot topic. Last summer, I thought the Google and Yahoo class action lawsuit settlements resolved the bulk of the problems, and most people would move on to…
Summary of Perfect 10 Decision
By John Ottaviani Eric suggested that I post this brief summary of the Perfect 10 v. Amazon decision: The 9th Circuit issued a lengthy opinion today, largely favorable to search engines and ISP’s. In 2006, the district court made its…
Another NY Court Says Keyword Triggering Isn’t TM Use in Commerce–Site Pro-1 v. Better Metal
By Eric Goldman Site Pro-1, Inc. v. Better Metal, LLC, 06-CV-6508 (ILG) (RER) (E.D.N.Y. May 9, 2007) The possible rift between the Second Circuit and other circuits on keyword triggering and trademark use in commerce may be widening. The latest…
Utah Trademark Protection Act Updates (from BNA)
By Eric Goldman As I previously reported, Utah legislators met with industry representatives to discuss the Utah Trademark Protection Act on April 25. BNA [BNA subscription required] provides a fresh update on developments since the April 25 meeting. According to…
Wikipedia and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) / Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
By Eric Goldman As regular readers know, this is one of my favorite topics! In December 2005 (and renewed December 2006), I predicted that marketers would overrun Wikipedia, contributing to Wikipedia’s demise. As further evidence of this effect, Danny Sullivan’s…
Utah Legislators Realizing They Screwed Up By Banning Keyword Advertising
By Eric Goldman Linda Fantin at the Salt Lake Tribune reports on the meeting between Utah legislators and various technology companies (Google, eBay, Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo, 1-800 Contacts and Overstock.com) to discuss the recently enacted Utah Trademark Protection Act banning…
Academic Debate over Trademark Use in Commerce
By Eric Goldman As regular blog readers know, a hot area in online trademark law is the “trademark use in commerce” element of the plaintiff’s prima facie case. This element has been dispositive in several noteworthy defense wins, including the…