What Do Soymilk and Nutella Have to Do With an Online Harassment Case?–Taylor v. Texas

March 30, 2012 · by

By Eric Goldman Taylor v. State, 2012 WL 955383 (Tex. App. Ct. March 22, 2012) In service of you, the reader, I read a lot of cases to find the…

Facebook Faces Jurisdictional Hurdle in its Trademark Lawsuit Against Faceporn–Facebook v. Pedersen

March 15, 2012 · by

…pretty active on the trademark front, suing among other sites Lamebook (“Lamebook Faces Down Facebook“) and Teachbook (“Facebook’s Trademark Suit Against Teachbook Survives Motion to Dismiss“). Interestingly, in both of…

Attempted Trademark Workaround to 47 USC 230 Immunity Fails Badly—Ascentive v. PissedConsumer [Catch-Up Post]

January 15, 2012 · by

…to review it, and trademark’s doctrinal plasticity means that such references arguably support a prima facie trademark claim. (I explain that issue more in my Online Word of Mouth paper)….

Updates on Transborder Copyright Enforcement Over “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer”–Shropshire v. Canning

January 9, 2012 · by

…Canning has 3 lawyers from Mark Lanier’s law firm (not Lanier himself). Seriously, guys? We’re talking about a comparatively obscure YouTube video, not Obamacare! Putting aside the many quirks of…

Trademark Owner Can’t Hold GoDaddy Liable for Domain Name Forwarding — Berhad v. GoDaddy

January 7, 2012 · by

…would conclusively establish bad faith intent to profit by the underlying registrant.] Cancellation of Petronas’s Mark: GoDaddy asserted counterclaims and sought to cancel Petronas’s mark. Petronas argued that GoDaddy lacked…

Nov.-Dec. 2011 Quick Links, Part 3

January 4, 2012 · by

…context, enforcing an arbitration clause posted to the web that was incorporated by reference in the vendor’s invoices. * Spam Arrest v. Marketingesquire complaint: Spam Arrest sues an email marketer…

Keyword Advertiser Mostly Defeats Trademark Lawsuit–Scooter Store v. SpinLife

January 4, 2012 · by

…retail stores, because the PTO rejected that usage as generic. TSS asserted that SpinLife’s keyword ads and metatags infringed its trademark rights. The court ultimately concludes that “The Scooter Store”…

I’m Not a Fan of this Craptastic Trademark Lawsuit–Fancaster v. Comcast

January 3, 2012 · by

By Eric Goldman Fancaster, Inc. v. Comcast Corp., 2011 WL 6426292 (D.N.J. Dec. 22, 2011). We’ve seen some pathetic trademark lawsuits this year (SUE MOAR KALE, anyone?), but I’ll nominate…

UMG v. Shelter Capital: A Cautionary Tale of Rightsowner Overzealousness

December 27, 2011 · by

…dicta in Tiffany v. eBay about “willful blindness,” which trademark plaintiffs have already started to mine. Trying to scrounge for any angle, I’m sure copyright plaintiffs will start digging around…

Trademark Lawsuit Against Groupon Isn’t Going Well–Groupion v. Groupon

December 6, 2011 · by

…other B2C. * mark strength. The court says “Groupion” is weak because others are using similar marks in its field and Groupion didn’t show evidence of the mark’s commercial strength….