Spam-Filtered Email Service Unwinds a $13M Default Judgment–Imagination Products v. Omont
Imagination Products has a supplemental trademark registration in the color orange (Pantone Orange 021c) for hand-operated plumbing snakes. It claims that several defendants, including Omont, sell drain clog cleaning tools that violate its trade dress in the orange shade. This…
Court Wipes Out SAD Scheme Default Judgment Due to Improper Email Service–Deckers v. Litfun
Deckers owns the UGG brand. It is a repeat SAD Scheme plaintiff. In this case, it sued 30 defendants for infringement, got permission to serve the lawsuit by email, and got default judgments against 18 defendants. One of those defendants,…
Another Abusive “Yelp Law” Lawsuit Fails–Scott v. Ulta
If you aren’t familiar with the mass-lawsuit campaign to weaponize California’s “Yelp Law,” Civil Code 1670.8, maybe start here to get up to speed. In short, California banned contract provisions that purport to restrict consumers from reviewing the business. Plaintiffs…
TWEET and the Bird Logo Apparently Enter the Public Domain, But X Maintains Its Grip on the TWITTER Mark (For Now)–X v. Project Bluebird
This case involves Project Bluebird, a social media service previously named “twitter.new” and renamed to tweet.app immediately after this ruling (for reasons this post makes obvious). Project Bluebird’s service is designed to reimagine the Twitter service that Musk imploded when…
It’s Hard for Parodic Products to Tarnish Famous Trademarks–Bad Spaniels v. Jack Daniel’s
The jurisprudence of parody dog toys and trademark dilution continues to grow. 📈 In this case, “JDPI argues that the Bad Spaniels toy dilutes its marks ‘by associating the famed whiskey with,’ as the Supreme Court put it, ‘dog excrement.’”…
11th Circuit Rejects Keyword Advertising Liability–Deltona v. NOCO
This case involves two competitors in the vehicle-battery charger industry. The plaintiff calls its offering “Battery Tender” (based on the analogy of a ship’s tender) and claims trademark rights in the term. Believing that the term is generic, NOCO began…
Large Roundup of Section 230 Rulings
This blog post rounds up nearly 20 Section 230 cases (and adjacent cases), mostly from the past four months, that for whatever reason I didn’t cover in a standalone blog post. Section 230’s effects are waning overall, but this post…
Court Rebuffs Emojico’s SAD Scheme TRO Request
This is a very recent Emojico SAD Scheme enforcement (filed last week). I’ve blogged a few Emojico cases before (see the link list below). Indeed, my interest in the SAD Scheme started with an Emojico case, so I pay a…
Google Defeats “Negligent Digital Architecture” Claim–Starrâ„¢ v. Google
According to her website (sorry, no link love here), Katherine Starrâ„¢ is a 2-time Olympian (she swam on Great Britain’s swim team under the name “Annabelle Cripps“) and a sexual abuse survivor. She now spends a lot of time thinking…
Seventh Circuit Limits Email Service to Chinese SAD Scheme Defendants–Kangol v. Hangzhou Silk
There have been thousands of SAD Scheme cases in the Northern District of Illinois, but this extensive litigation activity has produced only a small handful of Seventh Circuit opinions. This lack of appellate review has played a major role in…