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

January 15, 2012 · by

…confusion here either: after a brief inspection of the content of PissedConsumer’s website, the user would realize that they were visiting a third-party gripe site for “pissed” consumers. * metatags….

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

January 4, 2012 · by

…well as the inclusion of such terms in the spinlife.com’s metatags. The plaintiff (let’s call them TSS) has registered trademarks in “The Scooter Store” in certain classes but not for…

Nov.-Dec. 2011 Quick Links, Part 2 (Extended IP Edition)

January 3, 2012 · by

…domain www.perma-life.co.kr and using it to promote their competing Pearl Life cookware; b. Applying the metatags “perma life” and “permalife” to the website at www.perma-life.co.kr through which they sold their…

Keyword Metatags are Back…Will Judicial Freakouts Continue?

October 20, 2011 · by

By Eric Goldman Keyword metatags are back, and I couldn’t be less thrilled. Few Internet technologies have so thoroughly baffled judges as keyword metatags. From a technologists’ perspective, keyword metatags…

Facebook’s Trademark Suit Against Teachbook Survives Motion to Dismiss

October 1, 2011 · by

…a decade ago. In the Eli Lilly case, the court inferred the defendant’s bad faith from the defendant’s inclusion of the plaintiff’s trademark in the metatags. This is one of…

Web Vendor Dispute Gets Ugly–Ground Zero Museum v. Wilson

September 20, 2011 · by

…in economic damages in one year.” The only allegation of harm is that Wilson “stripped the metatags” (whatever that means) when he reverted the website back to the prior version,…

Ripoff Report Gets Another Big 47 USC 230 Win–Asia Economic Institute v. Xcentric

June 2, 2011 · by

…denies the plaintiffs’ request for further discovery. Among other things, the plaintiffs wanted to look for evidence that the HTML code/metatags aren’t generated automatically. The court says that information wouldn’t…

Quityerbitchin: Relative Search Results Placement Doesn’t Support Trademark Injunction–Bitchen Kitchen v. Bitchin’ Kitchen

May 15, 2011 · by

…the plaintiffs’ evidence and assertions regarding search-engine rankings. This argument reminded me of Chad Doellinger’s uncited article from a decade ago (Chad J. Doellinger, Trademarks, Metatags and Initial Interest Confusion:…

47 USC 230 Retrospective Conference Recap

March 21, 2011 · by

…the website is an ICP because it creates metatags and URLs. This exception would swallow the 230 rule. The Herman case rejected the argument. * Argue the website isn’t following…

Important Ninth Circuit Ruling on Keyword Advertising, Plus Recaps of the Past 4 Months of Keyword Ad Decisions

March 9, 2011 · by

…or selling keyword advertising. Oh well. A Side Note About Metatags In recounting the history of the Brookfield case and its discussion of metatags, the court drops FN3: “Modern search…