[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Rosenberg v. Harwood, No. 100916536 (Utah District Court; May 27, 2011) [pdf] Lauren Rosenberg was struck by an automobile while walking along a rural highway “with heavy traffic and no sidewalks.” She sued the driver of…

By Eric Goldman Righthaven LLC v. Democratic Underground, LLC, 2:10-cv-01356-RLH-GWF (D. Nev. June 14, 2011) This is another stinging defeat for Righthaven. The judge emphatically rejects Righthaven’s substantive arguments about its copyright assignment from Stephens Media and harshly criticizes Righthaven’s…

By Eric Goldman Pandora Jewelers 1995, Inc. v. Pandora Jewelry LLC, 2011 WL 2174012 (S.D. Fla. June 2, 2011) The plaintiff is a long-time single-storefront jewelry retailer in Florida (in a strip mall, naturally) with an e-commerce website. Pandora Jewelry,…

By Eric Goldman Smith v. Summit Entertainment LLC, 2011 WL 2200599 (N.D.Ohio June 6, 2011). The THResq story on the complaint filing. Summit Entertainment produces the Twilight series of movies. Matt Smith, a/k/a Matt Heart, is a musician. He posted…

By Eric Goldman In 2006, I published an article entitled Search Engine Bias and the Demise of Search Engine Utopianism in the Yale Journal of Law & Technology. The paper was based on my presentation at a December 2005 conference…

[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Coventry First, LLC v. Does, 11-cv-03700-JS (complaint filed June 7, 2011) The last big tussle over twittersquatting, and infringement through use of a trademark or name in a twitter handle was between Tony La Russa and…

By Eric Goldman Habush v. Cannon, 09-CV-18149 (Wis. Cir. Ct. June 8, 2011). The June 2010 denial of the motion to dismiss. A good overview article from when the complaint was filed. Introduction A Wisconsin court has said that a…

By Eric Goldman Social Media * The footballer superinjunction (for Ryan Giggs) was much bigger news in Britain than it was here. From my perspective, it was just another effort by a foreign government to squelch a Silicon Valley Internet…

By Eric Goldman Cornelius v. BodyBuilding.com, LLC, 2011 WL 2160358 (D. Idaho June 1, 2011) This case involves a nutritional supplement called Syntrax, which is available for sale on an e-commerce site BodyBuilding.com. The site supports users comments and message…

By Eric Goldman Search Engines * Google is working on a deal with the DOJ over illegal pharmaceutical ads and has set aside $500M for fines. Some background on the problem. Google isn’t the only search engine with problematic pharmaceutical…