Jan.-Feb. 2012 Quick Links, Part 2 (Trademarks, Patents, Trade Secrets, Innovation Edition)

By Eric Goldman Trademarks * Naked Cowboy v. CBS, 2012 WL 592539 (S.D.N.Y. Feb 23, 2012). The court rejects the trademark claim for CBS buying “Naked Cowboy” keyword advertising to promote the YouTube video for lack of use in commerce,…

An Update on PhoneDog v. Kravitz, the Employee Twitter Account Case

[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] PhoneDog v. Kravitz, No. C 11-03474 MEJ (N.D. Cal.) (Amended Complaint) (Motion to Dismiss) (PhoneDog Opposition) (Kravitz’s Reply) In November, the court allowed PhoneDog’s claims against Kravitz for conversion and trade secrets to proceed. (“Courts Says…

Nov.-Dec. 2011 Quick Links, Part 2 (Extended IP Edition)

By Eric Goldman Copyright * Costco v. Omega (E.D. Cal. Nov. 9, 2011). On remand after the disappointing non-result from the Supreme Court in this case, the district court gives Costco a decisive win, holding that Omega engaged in copyright…

Another Set of Parties Duel Over Social Media Contacts — Eagle v. Sawabeh

[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Eagle v. Morgan, 11-4303 (E.D. Pa.; Dec. 22, 2011) Background: Dr. Linda Eagle, who holds a Ph.D. in communication and psychology, teamed up with Clifford Brody and founded Edcomm. They were later joined by Davi Shapp….

Courts Says Employer’s Lawsuit Against Ex-Employee Over Retention and Use of Twitter Account can Proceed–PhoneDog v. Kravitz

[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] PhoneDog v. Kravitz, 2011 WL 5415612 (N.D. Ca.; Nov. 8, 2011) Another day, another post-employment dispute over a social media account. In this case, Noah Kravitz worked for PhoneDog, which is an “interactive mobile news and…

Employers Demanding the Right to Remotely Wipe Employees’ Phones?

By Eric Goldman I got the following email from one of my students (I edited a little to increase the anonymity): Recently, my spouse’s company announced that it is going to implement a new policy regarding those employees using their…

Q3 2011 Quick Links, Part 5

By Eric Goldman See the other quick links posts in this series: * Q3 2011 Quick Links, Part 4 * Q3 2011 Quick Links, Part 3 * Q3 2011 Quick Links, Part 2 (Trademarks/Domain Names Edition) * Q3 2011 Quick…

Idea Submission Case Revived Against MySpace–Riggs v. MySpace

By Eric Goldman Riggs v. MySpace, Inc., 2011 WL 3020543 (9th Cir. July 25, 2011) Riggs created a popular MySpace page, only to have MySpace delete it twice. Not pleased by that turn of events, for years Riggs has been…

April-May 2011 Quick Links, Part 3

By Eric Goldman Search Engines * Google is working on a deal with the DOJ over illegal pharmaceutical ads and has set aside $500M for fines. Some background on the problem. Google isn’t the only search engine with problematic pharmaceutical…

Jan.-Feb. 2011 Quick Links, Part 3 (Trademarks, Domain Names and Trade Secrets Edition)

By Eric Goldman Trademarks and Domain Names * From my perspective, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) domain name seizures are one of the US government’s top 5 all-time worst assaults on the Internet’s integrity. DHS’s ICE division is grabbing…