Io v. Veoh Comments–a Terrific 512(c) Defense-Side Win
…I think these two opinions put a huge exclamation mark to reject the notion that courts will only tolerate passive conduits (who do nothing to police their network) or perfect…
Minnesota Court Says Keyword Advertising is TM Use in Commerce–Hysitron v. MTS
…that buying a trademarked keyword is “use in commerce” under the Lanham Act even if the trademark doesn’t appear in the ad copy. The court says: This Court adopts the…
July 2008 Quick Links, Part I (IP Edition)
…defenses. 3) Ken Port, Trademark Extortion: The End of Trademark Law. Prof. Port marshals some empirical evidence to argue that the quantity of trademark lawsuits is dropping but more trademark…
June 2008 Quick Links
…under Rule 11 and the Lanham Act. * Marty reports on a German case saying that white-text-on-a-white-background is a trademark use. * Update on the battle over the trademark registration…
Keyword Metatags and Keyword-Triggered Ads Don’t Create Initial Interest Confusion–Designer Skin v. S&L Vitamins
…including trademark infringement and dilution, copyright infringement for displaying product shots, interference with contract and other related claims. Trademark Infringement With respect to trademark infringement, the plaintiff only complained about…
May 2008 Quick Links, Part 1 (Trademarks/Domain Names Edition)
…of months after the Utah legislature repealed the Utah Trademark Protection Act, a Utah law student says the law is unconstitutional. His conclusion: The Utah Trademark Protection Act places an…
Injunction Requires Negative Keywords in Future Adwords Campaigns
…containing any mark incorporating Plaintiff’s Mark, or any confusingly similar mark, and shall, when purchasing internet advertising using keywords, adwords or the like, require the activation of the term “ORION”…
Online Advertising Conference Recap
…Mark Cooper spoke about an interesting new paper he’s working on. He starts with the premise that everyone hates “interruption marketing” such as TV ads: consumers hate TV ads (interruptive)…
Bay Area Blawgers 3.0, May 20, Berkeley
…have said they plan to attend include: Tsan Abrahamson, Jerry Bame, Hudson Bair, Robert Barr, Larry Downes, Eli Edwards, Bob Eisenbach, Cathy Gellis, Mark Goldowitz (maybe), Susan Gluss, Eric Goldman,…
“Trademark Use in Commerce” Revisited
By Eric Goldman You may recall my repeated discussion about the trademark use in commerce doctrine. A quick recap: the federal trademark infringement statute references the requirement that the defendant…