The Ninth Circuit ruled that “Google” isn’t a generic trademark. This isn’t a surprise because a district court already reached this conclusion in 2014. See my prior blog post, “Google Successfully Defends Its Most Valuable Asset In Court.” Still, the…

As you recall, the FTC has taken the position that 1-800 Contacts’ agreement with competitors, via settlement agreements, not to bid on each other trademarks as keywords violates antitrust laws. Prior blog posts: * FTC Sues 1-800 Contacts For Restricting…
By guest bloggers Jeffrey J. Hunt and Rachel Lassig Wertheimer [Eric’s introduction: this post is written by lawyers who represented Ripoff Report in one of their multitudinous lawsuits. Because the authors were also advocates in this case, you might assume this…
My apologies for the indelicate headline. If you’re reading this because you’re hoping for some salacious insights regarding sexting, dick pics or masturbation, this post will disappoint you. An obvious protip: taking advice from a law professor on such topics…
by guest blogger Marketa Trimble Should your client – an internet content provider or service provider – geoblock? Your client might geolocate – that is, it might determine an internet user’s physical location and then localize content to adjust the…

I have posted a draft article, entitled Surveying the Law of Emojis, to SSRN. I will be posting excerpts from the article here over the next few weeks. I would gratefully appreciate your comments on the draft. I am also…
In 1997, TC Reiner worked with SuperStock to create a photo entitled “Casablanca.” If I understand it correctly, Reiner and SuperStock put significant time and money into creating the photo on spec, with the hope that a future advertiser would…
The decade-old book The Victorian Internet recaps the rise and fall of the telegraph. The telegraph was supposed to connect people together, but instead it played a crucial role facilitating ever-more-destructive wars. The author wrote: “That the telegraph was so…

Plaintiff sued CNN under the Video Privacy Protection Act, alleging that CNN wrongly disclosed plaintiff’s viewing records without plaintiff’s consent. The allegation is that plaintiff used the CNN app, which records viewing history, and CNN sent this information to Bango, a…
After all of the excitement over click fraud a decade ago, we don’t often see click fraud cases any more. However, just in the past couple months I’ve seen 3 rulings that I wanted to share with you. Wickfire, LLC…