17
08
2018
Technology & Marketing Law Blog
Eric Goldman
August 14, 2018
DealDash and Wish are e-commerce vendors. For a while, Wish offered a service called “Deal Dash” for time-limited bargains. Immediately after DealDash sued, Wish renamed its service “Bargain Blitz” and pulled the “DealDash” term from all advertising. DealDash still pressed for a preliminary injunction that restricted, among other things, using “DealDash” as keyword ad triggers in search engines and app stores.
Wish submitted an affidavit that it had blocked “DealDash” or “Deal Dash” as negative keywords in AdWords. The court responds:
Case citation: DealDash OYJ v. ContextLogic, Inc., 2018 WL 3820654 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 10, 2018)
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The content in this post was found at https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2018/08/negative-keywords-help-defeat-preliminary-injunction-dealdash-v-contextlogic.htm Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post. and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com
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Categories : Keywords/Meta-tags, Trademarks
13
08
2018
Technology & Marketing Law Blog
May 11, 2018
Eric Goldman
[ed’s note: Eric always argues that metatags are old school, irrelevant, and don’t mislead. He does so, even when a Circuit court case rules that THEY DO STILL MATTER].
Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit ruled about trademarked stripes on tennis shoes. To me, legally weaponizing dots in three lines on a shoe predictably leads to wasteful and possibly anti-consumer litigation. However, instead of critiquing the opinion generally, I’ll isolate just one aspect.
The court says:
Skechers placed metadata tags on its website that directed consumers who searched for “adidas Stan Smith” to the page for the Onix shoe. “Using another’s trademark in one’s metatags is much like posting a sign with another’s trademark in front of one’s store.” Brookfield Commc’ns, Inc. v. W. Coast Entm’t Corp., 174 F.3d 1036, 1064 (9th Cir. 1999). We agree with the district court that “the only reason ‘adidas Stan Smith’ is a useful search term is that consumers associate the term with a distinctive and recognizable shoe made by adidas.” Therefore, the district court did not clearly err by finding that the Stan Smith had acquired secondary meaning.
Instead of the multitude (dozens?) of Ninth Circuit cases interpreting online trademark law in the past two decades, this court in 2018 actually reaches back to the Brookfield billboard analogy from 1999? FFS. As I explained in 2005, Brookfield’s billboard analogy is irreparably flawed. Even in keyword metatag’s halcyon days when they had minor technical relevance, keyword metatags that are processed only by automated bots bear zero resemblance to a physical space sign that consumers see.
Case citation: Adidas America, Inc. v. Skechers USA, Inc., No. 16-35204 (9th Cir. May 10, 2018)
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The content in this post was found at https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2018/05/the-ninth-circuit-still-thinks-keyword-metatags-matter-in-2018-adidas-v-skechers.htm Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post. and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com
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Categories : Keywords/Meta-tags, Trademarks
10
02
2018
1) Xymogen, Inc. v. Digitalev, LLC, 2018 WL 659723 (M.D. Fla. Feb. 1, 2018). This appears to be a typical competitive keyword advertising case, with the twist that the plaintiff also alleges counterfeiting. The defendant moved to dismiss.
2) Engineered Tax Services, Inc. v. Scarpello Consulting, Inc., 2018 WL 741371 (S.D. Fla. Feb. 6, 2018). This appears to be a standard competitive keyword advertising case. The plaintiff made the following discovery request:
3) Edible Arrangements sued Google for product listings ads where the ad matrix is a mix of ads from Edible Arrangements and third parties. See this implementation:
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The content in this post was found at https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2018/02/brief-roundup-of-three-keyword-advertising-lawsuit-developments.htm and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.
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Categories : Keywords/Meta-tags, Trademarks
5
01
2018
Avery Labels worked hard to establish its brand among consumers as the premier retailer of label products, as well as providing software solutions through their design-and-print-online tool and one-stop premium printing service, “WePrint.” As a result, when consumers search online for label products, Avery is typically the top-of-mind brand, making Avery the envy of its competitors. A few of those competitors recently attempted to benefit from Avery’s category-leading position by using the Avery trademark on their digital marketing ads without Avery’s permission, which not only drove up Avery’s ad costs and cut into its results, but was a clear case of trademark infringement.
more.
The content in this post was found at http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2017/04/29/trademark-hijackers-hurting-online-advertisers-heres-how-to-stop-them/id=82505/ and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.
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Categories : Keywords/Meta-tags, Trademarks
1
01
2018
The print-on-demand business is a legally risky one. As I recently blogged, in June a court ruled that Zazzle did not qualify for the DMCA 512 safe harbor. This ruling is even more troubling. Are the days of print-on-demand services numbered, at least any that try to operate without human prescreening of all user uploads?
SunFrog prints user-uploaded designs on T-shirts and other merchandise. Users uploaded Harley-Davidson logos to produce what Harley considered counterfeit T-shirts. The case doesn’t mention if users uploaded any parodic versions of the logos, though the court’s ruling does not distinguish between counterfeits and parodies. (Paging Rebecca Tushnet, who has shown through FOIA requests that our own government can’t make that distinction either). SunFrog claimed it took a number of steps to protect Harley’s marks, but apparently these steps did not satisfy Harley.
Case citation: H.-D. USA, Inc. v. SunFrog LLC, 2017 WL 3261709 (E.D. Wis. July 31, 2017). The complaint.
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The content in this post was found at http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2017/08/trademark-injunction-issued-against-print-on-demand-website-harley-davidson-v-sunfrog.htm and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.
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Categories : Keywords/Meta-tags, Trademarks