Court Slams Competitive Metatagging and Keyword Advertising–Soilworks v. Midwest Industrial Supply
By Eric Goldman Soilworks, LLC v. Midwest Indus. Supply, Inc., 2008 WL 3286975 (D. Ariz. Aug. 7, 2008) All too frequently, we get an opinion where the judge clearly didn’t grasp current implementations of keyword advertising and metatagging. Often, it’s…
Competitive Pop-up Ads Aren’t Unfair Competition or Tortious Interference–Overstock v. SmartBargains
By Eric Goldman Overstock.com, Inc. v. SmartBargains, Inc., 2008 UT 55 (Utah Sup. Ct. Aug. 19, 2008) In light of the death of adware and the fact that almost all of us have moved on, it is jarring to see…
Minnesota Court Says Keyword Advertising is TM Use in Commerce–Hysitron v. MTS
By Eric Goldman Hysitron Inc. v. MTS Systems Corp., 2008 WL 3161969 (D. Minn. Aug. 1, 2008) In a brief and pedestrian opinion, another court outside the Second Circuit said that buying a trademarked keyword is “use in commerce” under…
Affiliate Liability Extravaganza
By Eric Goldman [Note: I recently published a version of this article at InformIT. Here’s the pre-edited version I sent them.] Introduction This article discusses marketers’ liability for the actions of their marketing affiliates (what I refer to as “affiliate…
July 2008 Quick Links, Part I (IP Edition)
By Eric Goldman Copyright * Granger v. Gill Abstract Corp., 2008 WL 2791264 (S.D.N.Y. July 18, 2008). A title company admitted infringing the defendant’s copyrighted “rate calculator” by posting it to the title company’s website. The plaintiff demanded actual damages…
Domainer Loses Cybersquatting Lawsuit–Verizon v. Navigation Catalyst
By Eric Goldman Verizon California, Inc. v. Navigation Catalyst Systems, Inc., 2008 WL 2651163 (C.D. Cal. June 30, 2008). The Justia page. A page with some of the early filings. [Sorry for the delay blogging this–it just showed up on…
American Airlines and Google Settle Keyword Advertising Lawsuit
By Eric Goldman American Airlines and Google have settled American Airlines’ trademark lawsuit over Google’s sale of keyword advertising. The settlement terms are confidential. See the unenlightening stipulation and the judge’s dismissal order. The Justia page. The Bloomberg News story….
GoDaddy Gets 230 Defense for Web Hosting–Kruska v. Perverted Justice Foundation
By Eric Goldman Kruska v. Perverted Justice Foundation Inc., 2008 WL 2705377 (D. Ariz. July 9, 2008). The CMLP page with lots of source material. GoDaddy allegedly hosted some third party websites that said some not-nice things about Kruska (calling…
Tiffany v. eBay District Court Opinion Analysis
By Eric Goldman Tiffany (NJ) Inc. v. eBay Inc., No 04 Civ. 4607 (RJS) (S.D.N.Y. July 14, 2008) It took most of the day, but I’ve finally read through the 66 page book in the Tiffany v. eBay case, and…
eBay Wins Huge Ruling in Tiffany Case
By Eric Goldman Tiffany (NJ) Inc. v. eBay Inc., No 04 Civ. 4607 (RJS) (SDNY July 14, 2008) In a 66 page ruling that I haven’t had time to digest, the judge appears to have completely accepted eBay’s arguments in…