Nov.-Dec. 2010 Quick Links, Part 5

By Eric Goldman Taxes * Amazon.com, LLC v New York State Dept. of Taxation & Fin., 2010 NY Slip Op 07823 (N.Y. App. Div. Nov. 4, 2010). A NY appellate court rejected Overstock’s/Amazon’s facial challenges to “affiliates tax” but revived…

Availability of Client Data on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google Sinks Trade Secrets Claim — Sasqua Group v. Courtney

[Post by Venkat with a brief comment from Eric] Sasqua Group, Inc. v. Courtney, 2010 WL 3613855 (E.D.N.Y. Aug. 2, 2010) Background: Sasqua Group and its principal (Tors) ran a executive search consulting firm for professionals in the financial services…

July 2010 Quick Links, Part 1 (IP Edition)

By Eric Goldman Trademarks * Rebelution, LLC v. Perez, 2010 WL 3036217 (N.D. Cal. July 30, 2010). The plaintiff is a band named Rebelution. The defendant is a music performer named Pitbull who released an album “Pitbull Starring in Rebelution”…

Interesting Database Scraping Case Survives Summary Judgment–Snap-On Business Solutions v. O’Neil

[Post by Venkat, with additional comments from Eric below] Snap-on Business Solutions Inc. v. O’Neil & Assocs., Inc. (N.D. Ohio April 16, 2010) [scribd] Snap-on is one of those cases that’s great because the court canvasses the various claims that…

Nursing Student’s Blog Post Doesn’t Support Expulsion–Yoder v. University of Louisville

By Eric Goldman Yoder v. University of Louisville, 2009 WL 2406235 (W.D. Ky. Aug. 3, 2009). Yoder’s initial complaint. Nina Yoder was a University of Louisville nursing student. She posted a blog post to MySpace entitled “How I Witnessed the…

Promatek Redux: Software Consultant Enjoined from Metatag Usage and Other TM References–Deltek v. Iuvo

By Eric Goldman Deltek, Inc. v. Iuvo Systems, Inc., 2009 WL 1073196 (E.D. Va. April 20, 2009). The Justia page. Every year in Cyberlaw, I teach Promatek v. Equitrac, a Seventh Circuit metatags case from 2002 noteworthy for its multiple…

Q1 2009 Quick Links, Part 4

By Eric Goldman Security * Massachusetts Data Security regulations were amended. * In Facebook v. Power.com, Facebook brought another lawsuit to block extraction of user data from the site (similar to the Facebook v. ConnectU lawsuit). Venkat, Masnick, News.com, NYT,…

Employee Blogging Risks

By Eric Goldman A couple of weeks ago, I spoke at the North Carolina Journal of Law & Technology’s symposium called “Attack of the Blog: Legal Horrors in the Workplace.” (I definitely did not pick the name!) In the morning,…

Keeping C&D Letters Confidential

By Eric Goldman An all-too-familiar story. A famous celebrity takes her clothes off in a private outdoor space (in this case, Jennifer Aniston goes topless in her backyard). The paparazzi captures the event for posterity and profit. Celebrity finds out…