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Weird Science! It’S My Creation . . . Is It Really? Or: Crafting A New Universal Trademark Standard For User-Created Avatars, Ryan Esparza
Weird Science! It’S My Creation . . . Is It Really? Or: Crafting A New Universal Trademark Standard For User-Created Avatars, Ryan Esparza
Pace Intellectual Property, Sports & Entertainment Law Forum
In modern trademark law the process of registering a valid trademark is straightforward. In the United States the Lanham Act is the ruling law of trademark law. The Lanham Act grants protection to the owner of a registered mark which is distinctive and used in commerce. Assuming all the requirements are met, the owner of a mark can use the mark within its discretion and enjoy the protection under the Lanham Act. As trademark law has continued to evolve, the law has expanded to protect previously unforeseen categories. The two most obvious examples which demonstrate the evolution of protection under …
How Many Likes Did It Get? Using Social Media Metrics To Establish Trademark Rights, Caroline Mrohs
How Many Likes Did It Get? Using Social Media Metrics To Establish Trademark Rights, Caroline Mrohs
Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology
This comment asserts that there is a need for an update to the multifactor test considered by courts in determining the strength of a trademark. Traditional factors include the expenses an entity can afford to pay in advertising, but do not give any weight to the presence of the entity on social media to reach its target consumer group.
Jurisdictional Limits Of In Rem Proceedings Against Domain Names, Michael Xun Liu
Jurisdictional Limits Of In Rem Proceedings Against Domain Names, Michael Xun Liu
Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review
In 1999, Congress passed the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) to combat “cybersquatters” who profited by registering domain names that were confusingly similar to established trademarks. Under the ACPA, trademark owners have a specific cause of action against domain name registrants accused of cybersquatting. Moreover, the law gives U.S. courts in rem jurisdiction over trademark infringing domain names registered to parties that are not subject to personal jurisdiction. Over the past decade, proceeding in rem against domain names has proven to be an effective strategy for trademark owners. While many companies have used the ACPA against cybersquatters, others have relied …
Whose Social Network Account: A Trade Secret Approach To Allocating Rights, Zoe Argento
Whose Social Network Account: A Trade Secret Approach To Allocating Rights, Zoe Argento
Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review
Who has the superior right to a social network account? This is the question in a growing number of disputes between employers and workers over social network accounts. The problem has no clear legal precedent. Although the disputes implicate rights under trademark, copyright, and privacy law, these legal paradigms fail to address the core issue. At base, disputes over social network accounts are disputes over the right to access the people, sometimes numbering in the tens of thousands, who follow an account. This Article evaluates the problem from the perspective of the public interest in social network use, particularly the …
Promoting Trademark's Ends And Means Through Online Contributory Liability, E. Jordan Teague
Promoting Trademark's Ends And Means Through Online Contributory Liability, E. Jordan Teague
Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law
Trademark law accomplishes its ultimate end--helping consumers easily find, distinguish between, and trust products and services from different brands--through the means of giving markholders an incentive to develop and cultivate these brands in the first place. While individual trademark laws should serve these ends and means, this is not the case with contributory infringement in the United States as applied to the Internet. First, since the doctrine is based entirely in common law with little case law specifically addressing the online context, contributory infringement gives online service providers (OSPs) little notice as to what types of behaviors could result in …
Google Adwords: Trademark Infringer Or Trade Liberalizer, Ashley Tan
Google Adwords: Trademark Infringer Or Trade Liberalizer, Ashley Tan
Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review
Google is the world's most preferred search engine, with an audience share of eighty percent of Internet users worldwide. With so many people browsing its search results, Google is a natural advertising vehicle, and it has exploited this quality to become one of the most profitable Internet companies in U.S. history. However, success has not come without controversy, and one of the most significant concerns Google AdWords, which displays keyword-triggered ads and sponsored links alongside non-sponsored search results. AdWords has come under attack in the United States and in the European Union ("EU") for its role in trademark infringement on …
"I See What You're Saying": Trademarked Terms And Symbols As Protected Consumer Commentary In Consumer Opinion Websites, Leslie C. Rochat
"I See What You're Saying": Trademarked Terms And Symbols As Protected Consumer Commentary In Consumer Opinion Websites, Leslie C. Rochat
Seattle University Law Review
Although there are a wide array of unresolved trademark issues with regard to the Internet, this Comment will not address disputes involving anything beyond the visible content of an individual's website. Domain name and meta-tag issues, though often referenced in order to demonstrate trends in analysis, are not the subjects of this inquiry. Rather, this Comment will focus on the triumvirate of claims most frequently asserted against individual web masters in the battle over the propriety of consumer commentary: trademark infringement, unfair competition, and trademark dilution. A recent court decision, Bally Total Fitness v. Faber, provides an example of the …
Trademark Issues In Cyberspace: The Brave New Frontier, Sally M. Abel
Trademark Issues In Cyberspace: The Brave New Frontier, Sally M. Abel
Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review
Cyberspace raises a variety of thought-provoking trademark and trademark-related issues. While many of the issues and problems that arise may be analyzed and resolved from the vantage point of traditional notions of trademark law, others present thornier questions requiring greater sensitivity to the practical effect of cyberspace on the commercial marketplace. The cyberspace trademark issue that continues to get the most press is the domain name controversy. Is a domain a trademark? When does use of a domain infringe trademark rights? If someone else registers a company's name or trademark as their domain, what can the company do? Beyond domains …
Internet Framing: Complement Or Hijack , Raymond Chan
Internet Framing: Complement Or Hijack , Raymond Chan
Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review
Currently, the technology of "framing" allows a web site to: (1) pull in the contents of an external site into the local site; (2) "chop" up the contents of the external site into different "frames" or parts; and (3) display only the frames that are beneficial to the framing site. When an advertisements is blocked off by a frame, an advertiser who paid to advertise at an external (framed) site may cease to purchase advertising space from that external site if the framing activities of another web site prevent the advertisement from reaching prospective viewers. From the perspective of the …
What State Am I In?: Common Law Trademarks On The Internet , Brian L. Berlandi
What State Am I In?: Common Law Trademarks On The Internet , Brian L. Berlandi
Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review
This essay explores the interaction between common law trademarks and the Internet--a relationship that has yet to be scrutinized by the intellectual property and Internet communities. More specifically, it strains to identify a common law mark's territorial zone of protection with respect to the Internet. This is an ambitious endeavor from the start, for there is no case law or published academic material available or directly on-point. As a result, this essay will not be a critique of judicial precedent or academic opinion. Instead, it offers a premonition of future case law and a foreshadowing of legal scenarios that might …