Court Allows Microsoft’s Claims for Contributory Cybersquatting and Dilution to Move Forward — Microsoft v. Shah
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Microsoft Corp. v. Shah, et al., C10-0653 (W.D. Wash.; Jan. 12, 2011) WSJ’s Law Blog reports that Judge Martinez in the Western District of Washington (Seattle) issued an order allowing Microsoft to proceed on a novel…
Keyword Advertiser Headed to Trial–Soaring Helmet v. Nanal
By Eric Goldman Soaring Helmet Corp. v. Nanal, Inc., 2011 WL 39058 (W.D. Wash. Jan. 3, 2011) I previously blogged on this case in 2009 when Soaring Helmet sued Google for selling keyword advertising triggered on its trademark. Soaring Helmet…
Search Engines Sued for Accepting Keyword Advertising on “Cheese of the Month Club” Trademark–Pathak v. ICG
By Eric Goldman Pathak v. ICG America, Inc., 5:11-cv-00055-VAP -OP (C.D. Cal. complaint filed Jan. 6, 2011) Pathak’s lawsuit is the latest iteration in the litigation deathmatch royale taking place among retailers with “[Food] of the month club” trademarks. See…
Google Files Unredacted Brief in Rosetta Stone v. Google Appeal
By Eric Goldman After some prodding by Paul Levy of Public Citizen, Google has filed an unredacted version of its response brief in the Rosetta Stone v. Google appeal. As Paul explains in his blog post, the newly disclosed information…
Nov.-Dec. 2010 Quick Links, Part 1 (Trademarks and Advertising Edition)
By Eric Goldman I have a big backlog of Quick Links from the last 2 months. I’ll post them over the next few days. I also have a backlog of other blog posts I need to write, especially my reassessment…
Hotels Benefit When Distributors Reference the Hotel’s Trademark in Keyword Ad Copy
By Eric Goldman Lesley Chiou of Occidental College and Catherine Tucker of MIT have posted an empirical study, How Does the Use of Trademarks by Third-Party Sellers Affect Online Search? The study tries to model what happens when distributors use…
SEO/Web Design Consultant Faces Contributory Trademark Liability for “Copycat” E-Commerce Site–Roger Cleveland Golf v. Price
By Eric Goldman Roger Cleveland Golf Co. v. Price, 2010 WL 5019260 (D. S.C. Dec. 3, 2010). [Note: the case captioning is probably wrong. Apparently, it should have been Roger Cleveland Golf Co. v. Prince] Online contributory trademark infringement liability…
Rosetta Stone v. Google Amicus Briefs in Support of Google
By Eric Goldman Three amicus briefs were filed in support of Google in the Rosetta Stone v. Google appeal. eBay and Yahoo. This is the “industry” brief, although in the past, typically more players have joined a brief like this….
Court Holds Defendant in Contempt for Failing to Scrub Trademark Use From the Internet — TDC Int’l v. Burnham
[Post by Venkat, with comments from Eric] TDC Int’l v. Burnham, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 116741 (E.D. Mich; Nov. 2, 2010) TDC sued Burnham based on Burnham’s use of the “Quick and Easy Moving” mark, which supposedly infringed on TDC’s…
Rosetta Stone v. Google Appellate Briefs: Google’s Opening Brief and Rosetta Stone’s Unredacted Brief
By Eric Goldman Due to the intervention of Public Citizen, Rosetta Stone filed an unredacted brief in its appeal of Rosetta Stone v. Google. The actual redacted material seemed hardly worthy of confidentiality; in some cases, the information already was…