January 2007 Quick Links

By Eric Goldman * Marketers (including Microsoft) are paying authors to write Wikipedia entries. Surprised?! * Also on the topic of Wikipedia and marketers, Wikipedia has tagged all of their pages NOFOLLOW so that there’s no way a marketer or…

Google Goes After Stoller

By Eric Goldman Google v. Central Mfg Inc., No. 07CV 385 (N.D. Ill. complaint filed Jan. 19, 2007) Leo Stoller is a notorious figure in the trademark community, especially among the hundreds (thousands?) of trademark owners he’s targeted with demands…

Rescuecom v. Google Appellant Brief

By Eric Goldman Rescuecom v. Google, 06-4881-CV (2nd Circuit appellant brief filed January 12, 2007) You may recall Rescuecom v. Google, which held that Google was not making a trademark use in commerce by selling trademarked keywords. This ruling resulted…

Haifa University Search Engine Conference Recap

Haifa Conference Recap On December 21, Haifa University Faculty of Law conducted an interesting cross-disciplinary and international inquiry into the law of search engines, with a whirlwind tour of about two dozen 10-minute presentations over a long 11 hour day….

December 2006 Quick Links

By Eric Goldman * JP Enterprises, Inc. v. HDVE, LLC, 1:06-cv-01046-REB-PAC (D. Colo.). In June 2006, JP Enterprises sued Yahoo for selling its trademarks for keyword-triggered ads. In December, JP Enterprises and Yahoo stipulated a dismissal of the case against…

Competitive Keyword Purchase Doesn’t Contribute to Actual Dilution–Nautilus v. Icon

By Eric Goldman Nautilus Group, Inc. v. Icon Health & Fitness, Inc., 2006 WL 3761367 (W.D. Wa. Dec. 21, 2006) In a long-running dispute, BowFlex sued competitor CrossBow for trademark dilution. CrossBow moved for summary judgment, claiming (among other things)…

Keyword Ads and Metatags Don’t Confuse Consumers–J.G. Wentworth v. Settlement Funding

By Eric Goldman J.G. Wentworth SSC Ltd v. Settlement Funding LLC, No. 06-0597 (E.D. Pa. Jan. 4, 2007) The keyword advertising legal roller-coaster continues. Last time I blogged on the matter in the Buying for the Home case, I indicated…

Google Wins Publisher’s Lawsuit over AdSense Termination–Bradley v. Google

By Eric Goldman Bradley v. Google, Inc., 2006 WL 3798134 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 22, 2006) I’m struggling with developing a policy regarding blogging about pro se lawsuits (i.e., lawsuits brought without a lawyer) against major companies like Google. On the…

Top Cyberlaw Developments of 2006

By Eric Goldman and John Ottaviani [Eric’s Note: I will be in Israel for the rest of the year. So while it’s a little premature to publish an end-of-the-year recap, this may be my last post for the year. John…

Search Engine Law Conference in Haifa, Israel

I am participating in an intriguing conference on search engine law being sponsored by the Haifa Center for Law & Technology on December 21. See the conference website. If you’re going to be in Israel between December 17 and 27,…