New AdWords Trademark Lawsuit–JTH Tax v. Google

JTH Tax, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 2:05CV200 (E.D. Va. complaint filed April 4, 2005). JTH runs “Liberty Tax Service.” A company, “freeadvicecenter.com” runs an AdWords ad (the complaint does not specify what keywords triggered it) that has the title “Liberty…

Anti-Spoofing Protocol

A spammer makes unauthorized use of a company’s trademarks in an email promoting the purchase of goods/services. This isn’t a phishing email per se; it’s not trying to disgorge personal statistics for identity theft or outright theft (although it may…

Talk at Stanford on Online Trademark Law

I’m giving a talk at Stanford on Saturday about online trademark law. You can get a sneak preview of my outline. (This talk is largely cribbed from my Deregulating Relevancy paper).

Bosley Medical Institute v. Kremer–Victory for Gripers

Bosley Medical Institute v. Kremer, No. 04-55962, 9th Cir. Apr. 4, 2005. Kremer launches gripe site at www.bosleymedical.com, using the trademark of his target (with no additional words/letters) in the domain name. The court’s response was a big victory for…

Q Pasa?

Who owns the letter “Q” in connection with autos? Nissan claims it does and Audi doesn’t. Update: Detroit Free Press story (quoting Schwimmer) [but I’m pretty sure that Apple does not own the prefix “i”, so I’ll chalk that up…

Utah Amends Spyware Control Act

Last week, the Utah governor signed HB 104, the amendment to Utah’s Spyware Control Act. The amendment is, in fact, a nearly complete rewrite of the prior law. I blogged on the proposed law last month, and since then further…

EFF Against Trademark Dilution Act

The EFF has come out against the Trademark Dilution Revision Act. UPDATE: The law has passed. My comments on the Trademark Dilution Revision Act of 2006 as passed.

Google/Viaticum, Luteciel

New ruling from the Versailles Court of Appeals in the Google/Viaticum, Luteciel case over Google France’s sale of the keywords “bourse de voyages”, “bourse de vols” and “bdv” to competitors. Once again, Google France loses. The French courts continue to…

Complaint in Jewish Rock and Roll Hall of Fame TM Case

I’ve uploaded the complaint in Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum Inc. v. Jewish Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inc., Civ. No. 1:05CV0527 (N.D. Ohio filed Feb. 7, 2005). See my earlier post on this.

Trademark Dilution Revision Act of 2005 Passes House Judiciary Committee

The Trademark Dilution Revision Act of 2005 (HR 683) has passed the House Judiciary Committee on March 9. A number of amendments were made to the bill, but the bill still remains very favorable to trademark owners. The bill still…