April-May 2010 Quick Links Part 1 (IP Edition)
By Eric Goldman [Note: I just got back from the Netherlands, where I had extremely limited Internet connectivity, so sorry for my absence in the last week (although you were in good hands with Venkat). I will be posting more…
Life May Be “Rad,” But This Trademark Lawsuit Isn’t–Williams v. CafePress.com
By Eric Goldman Williams v. Life’s Rad, 2010 U.S.Dist. LEXIS 46763 (N.D. Cal. May 12, 2010) This lawsuit bummed me out. The trademark at issue–the surfing-inspired “Life’s Rad”–is supposed to lift people up, but it’s hard to maintain a sunny…
Steps Brand Owners Can Take to Deal With Brandjacking on Social Networks
[Post by Venkat] Winston & Strawn published an article titled [pdf] “Five Steps to Protect Your Trademarks in a Web 2.0 World.” The article sets out some steps brand owners can take to prevent or deal with infringement of their…
A First Look by Tom McCarthy at the Sixth Circuit’s 2010 Victoria’s Secret Tarnishment Decision [Guest Blog Post]
By J. Thomas McCarthy [Eric’s note: Last week, the Sixth Circuit issued a new ruling in the long-running V Secret Catalogue v. Moseley case, this time featuring three opinions from a three-judge panel. Tom McCarthy has generously shared his views…
Twitter May Allow Competitors to Purchase Trademarks as Keywords for Sponsored Tweets
[Post by Venkat] via Reid Wilson (at the INTA Annual Meeting): Twitter’s GC on sponsored tweets: still working on the policy; may permit TM’s to be purchased by competitors as key words 4 sponsored twts.less than a minute ago via…
How Much Does 1-800 Contacts Hate Competitive Keyword Advertising? $1.1M Worth!?
By Eric Goldman Rader Fishman & Grauer PLLC v. 1-800 Contacts, Inc., 2:10-cv-00191-TS-DN (redacted complaint filed March 30, 2010; answer and counterclaim filed March 25, 2010; counterclaim answer filed April 19, 2010) 1-800 Contacts has been a repeated guest star…
A Jury Verdict That Competitive Keyword Advertising Isn’t Trademark Infringement–College Network v. Moore
By Eric Goldman College Network, Inc. v. Moore Educational Publishers, Inc., 2010 WL 1923763 (5th Cir. May 12, 2010). The jury verdict form from January 2009. The district court’s final judgment from June 2009. In December, I blogged about the…
Geographic Trademark Leads to Interesting (& Tortured) Injunction–Skydive Arizona v. Quattrocchi
By Eric Goldman Skydive Arizona, Inc. v. Quattrocchi, 2010 WL 1743189 (D. Ariz. April 29, 2010). A jury found that the defendants had committed trademark infringement, false advertising and cybersquatting and awarded $2.5M in damages, which the judge doubled. Unfortunately,…
Amazon Wins Keyword Advertising Suit–Video Professor v. Amazon
By Eric Goldman Video Professor, Inc. v . Amazon.com, Inc., 1:09-cv-00636-REB-KLM (D. Colo. April 21, 2010) Video Professor has been involved in a few interesting legal scrapes. For example, you may recall that in 2007 they launched a major crackdown…
Google Successfully Transfers Another AdWords Case to California–Parts Geek v. US Auto Parts
By Eric Goldman Parts Geek, LLC v. U.S. Auto Parts Network, Inc., 2010 WL 1381005 (D.N.J. April 1, 2010) Google has successfully transferred another trademark lawsuit over AdWords to its home court in California based on the mandatory venue clause…