Rescuecom v. Google Pre-Oral Argument Details
By Eric Goldman We’re anxiously awaiting oral arguments in the Rescuecom v. Google case next week. In advance of that, the court cleaned up a couple of matters: 1) The court denied the amicus brief from Yahoo, AOL and eBay….
Google Site-Specific Search-Within-Search Tool–Why is Everyone So Worked Up About This?
By Eric Goldman On Monday, Bob Tedeschi at the NYT published an article entitled “A New Tool From Google Alarms Sites” about Google’s recently launched site-specific search-within-search box. When I first saw the feature, I really didn’t think about it…
Griper Selling Anti-Walmart Items Through CafePress Doesn’t Infringe or Dilute–Smith v. Wal-Mart
By Eric Goldman Smith v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 2008 WL 760196 (N.D. Ga. March 20, 2008) Charles Smith doesn’t like Walmart. Like many gripers, he has taken his cause to the web. Among other things, he set up two CafePress…
Adwords Ad Creates Initial Interest Confusion–Storus v. Aroa
By Eric Goldman Storus Corp. v. Aroa Marketing Inc., 2008 WL 449835 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 15, 2008). (Sorry for my delay blogging this one). A federal district court has held that displaying a competitor’s trademark in Adwords ad copy constitutes…
Utah Amends Trademark Protection Act (But Only After Some Drama)
By Eric Goldman One of the arguments in favor of federalism is that it enables states to act as “laboratories of experimentation,” a phrase attributed to Louis Brandeis. The idea is that if enough states try different things legislatively, then…
Utah Quietly Killing the Trademark Protection Act [UPDATED]
By Eric Goldman [See update below] We’re coming up on the one year anniversary of the Utah Trademark Protection Act, Utah’s effort to kill/tax keyword advertising. It looks like the law may not survive until its first birthday, as the…
Lifestyle Lift Tries to Use TM Law to Shut Down User Discussions; Website Countersues for Shilling–Lifestyle Lift v. RealSelf
By Eric Goldman Lifestyle Lift Holding, Inc. v. RealSelf Inc., 2:08-cv-10089-PJD-RSW (complaint filed Jan. 7, 2008 and answer/counterclaims filed March 3, 2008) [disclosure note: I have done some legal work for RealSelf, including some limited counseling on this lawsuit] No…
Feb. 2008 Quick Links
By Eric Goldman Advertising * BusinessWeek: Monetizing social networking sites isn’t as easy as everyone had hoped, clickthrough rates are through the floor (0.04%!), and ad proliferation on the sites is driving users away. * Wilbur, Kenneth C. and Zhu,…
Rescuecom v. Google Oral Arguments Finally Calendared
By Eric Goldman You may recall Rescuecom v. Google, where the district court dismissed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Google for selling trademarked keywords because the sales lacked the requisite use in commerce. We are all watching this case closely…
Eric Menhart Backs Off CyberLaw Trademark Claim
By Eric Goldman You may recall that last month we all had a good laugh over self-proclaimed Cyberlawyer Eric Menhart’s trademark application for the term “CyberLaw” to describe his Cyberlaw practice. (In case it wasn’t clear, we weren’t laughing WITH…