Free for a Fee

By Eric Goldman

Riggs v. MySpace, Inc., 2:09-cv-03073-GHK-CT (C.D. Cal. Sept. 17, 2009)

This case has received some modest attention throughout its history (including a quick mention here when the court upheld MySpace’s user agreement), but the district court’s dismissal of the case appears to have been completely overlooked.

more

The content in this post was found at http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2009/11/myspace_quietly.htm and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

For the first time in almost 30 years, the U.S. Supreme Court on
Monday considered the issue of what types of technology should be
eligible for patent protection when it heard oral arguments in Bilski v. Kappos.

Across the board, the justices indicated a deep skepticism toward the
invention described in the patent application at issue, which was
rejected by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and describes a method
for trading commodities. Some of the justices went even
further—expressing both a fair amount of disdain for the idea of
granting broad “method” patents and a concern that ruling in favor of
the petitioners would lead to patent grants on fundamental ways of
conducting business or organizing human behavior.

more

The content in this post was found at http://thepriorart.typepad.com/the_prior_art/2009/11/bilski-oral-arguments.html and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

more

The content in this post was found at http://jetl.wordpress.com/2009/11/26/scotus-skeptical-of-business-method-patents// and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

Microsoft has been issuing takedown notices for publicly hosting its leaked Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor (COFEE) tool. The company sent off “Demand for Immediate Take-Down: Notice of Infringing Activity” to companies hosting websites that offered the tool. The e-mails all start with the following standard statement: “Microsoft has received information that the domain listed above, which appears to be on servers under your control, is offering unlicensed copies of, or is engaged in other unauthorized activities relating to copyrighted works published by Microsoft.”

The content in this post was found at http://feeds.arstechnica.com/arstechnica/BAaf and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

By Eric Goldman

Morningware, Inc. v. Hearthware Home Products, Inc., 2009 WL 3878251 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 16, 2009)

I keep getting calls from reporters operating under the misimpression that trademark owner-vs.-search engine keyword advertising lawsuits are more common than trademark owner-vs.-keyword advertiser lawsuits. While the lawsuits against search engines certainly get way more press coverage, in reality they are relatively rare. I don’t have an exact count of pending lawsuits, but only 10 immediately come to my mind (9 against Google and the AA v. Yahoo case). In contrast, trademark owner-vs.-advertiser lawsuits are so numerous that I don’t blog on every complaint I see, and most trademark owners are wise enough to leave the search engines out of their litigation.

This is a fairly run-of-the-mill trademark owner-vs.-advertiser case.

more

The content in this post was found at http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2009/11/keyword_adverti_3.htm and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.