Internet & Computer Law Archives - Page 18 of 34

How to Lose a Cybersqatting Case against a Serial Cybersquatter

Digital Media Lawyer Blog: “It seems unthinkable. How can a business that has registered and used a trademark for a decade lose an ACPA case against a serial cybersquatter who has been adjudicated to have used the mark at issue in bad faith? The fact is that it can and does happen. When a plaintiff sues under the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, it must prove that it owns a valid trademark. 15 U.S.C. § 1125(d). This means that an ACPA suit puts the validity of the plaintiff’s trademark at issue. And if the defendant chooses to put up a fight, the end result of an ACPA suit can be that the plaintiff’s trade name loses protection as a trademark. This was the result in American Blind. It also may be the result in Lahoti v. Vericheck.”

Facebook Postings Cause Woman to Lose Insurance Benefits

An insurance company that was paying monthly sick-leave benefits to a woman for depression terminated the benefits after it found postings on the woman’s Facebook page that showed her at a bar, partying and on vacation. The insurance company terminated the benefits because it said the Facebook postings showed she could work.

Class Action Target Sues Law Firm for Defamation

Law.com: “Soon after filing a class action last spring against the maker of a dietary supplement called Procera AVH, Thomas Clarke Jr., a partner in the San Francisco office of Ropers, Majeski, Kohn & Bentley, uploaded a video on YouTube about the class action and talked to a television reporter for a news story about the litigation. Now, Brain Research Labs, the defendant in that class action, has sued Clarke and his law firm, as well as the plaintiff named in the complaint, saying their comments on TV and the Internet are defamatory and have hurt the company’s business. In a Friday hearing on a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, the company’s lawyers painted Clarke as an attorney who’d gone too far.”

Citizen Media Law Project Launches Legal Assistance Network for Online Journalists

Citizen Media Law Project: “We are delighted to announce the public launch of the Berkman Center’s Online Media Legal Network (OMLN), a new pro bono (i.e., free!) initiative that connects lawyers and law school clinics from across the country with online journalists and digital media creators who need legal help. Lawyers participating in OMLN will provide qualifying online publishers with pro bono and reduced fee legal assistance on a broad range of legal issues, including business formation and governance, copyright licensing and fair use, employment and freelancer agreements, access to government information, pre-publication review of content, and representation in litigation.”

Will Secret Copyright Treaty Restrict Your Digital Rights?

MacUser: “Most Americans expect that their laws are only passed after some period of public debate between Republicans and Democrats or their news-channel proxies. However, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) may be an exception to this rule, and if it is signed, many United States laws concerning the Internet and ownership of data may become substantively different. Various nations (including Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, and the U.S.) are said to be negotiating ACTA now, with the goal of passing a joint treaty to protect intellectual property sometime in 2010. I would like to tell you much more about what’s being written into the ACTA bill, but I can’t: the contents of the treaty are secret.”

See also “Stopping the ACTA Juggernaut.”

How can such a radical proposal legally be kept so secret from the millions of Net users and companies whose rights and freedoms stand to be affected? Who decides what becomes the law of the land and by what influence? Where is the public oversight for an agreement that would set the legal rules for the knowledge economy? And what can be done to fix this runaway process?