Autodesk, Inc. v. Dassault Systemes Solidworks Corp., 2009 WL 5218009 (N.D. Cal. December 31, 2009) One of the issues in the case of Autodesk, Inc. v. Dassault Systemes Solidworks was whether Autodesk could claim trademark rights and the letters “DWG”. The .dwg (“drawing”) file extension is the native file format for Autodesk’s flagship product AutoCAD. [...]
Archive for January, 2010
Wait just a second . . . isn’t online gambling illegal?
January 26th, 2010
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Wong v. Partygaming Ltd., — F.3d —, 2009 WL 4893955 (6th Cir. December 21, 2009) The Sixth Circuit’s recent opinion in the case of Wong v. Partygaming is interesting if you’re a civil procedure wonk and care about things like which law applies to determine the enforceability of forum selection clauses in website terms and [...]
Lawsuit against state officials for privacy violation moves forward
January 21st, 2010
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Welch v. Theodorides-Bustle, — F.Supp.2d —, 2010 WL 22365 (N.D. Fla., January 5, 2010) Plaintiff sued the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles and a number of state officials for violation of the federal Driver’s Privacy Protection Act, 18 USC ยง2721-25. Plaintiff claimed that the defendants turned over a large amount of protected [...]
Court orders anonymous GQ blogger and accused hacker to be identified
January 19th, 2010
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Advance Magazine Publishers v. Does 1-5, No. 09-10257 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 22, 2009) Someone accessing the Internet using an AT&T IP address hacked into Conde Nast’s computer system and acquired and published copies of editorial content and the images that were to be in the December 2009 issue of GQ. Those images were later published anonymously [...]
BitTorrent site liable for Grokster style inducement of copyright infringement
January 14th, 2010
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Columbia Pictures v. Fung, No. 06-5578 (C.D. Cal. December 21, 2009). This case came out three weeks ago, but it’s pretty significant and hasn’t gotten the coverage and analysis it deserves. Of course Professor Goldman covered it in a timely manner. But his blogging agility surpasses that of us mere mortals. Fung and his company [...]
How Section 230 is like arson laws when it comes to enjoining website operators
January 12th, 2010
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The case of Blockowicz v. Williams, — F.Supp.2d —, 2009 WL 4929111 (N.D. Ill. December 21, 2009), which I posted on last week is worthy of discussion in that it raises the question of whether website operators like Ripoff Report could get off too easily when they knowingly host harmful third party content. Immunity under [...]
Injunction against defamatory content could not reach website owner
January 7th, 2010
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Blockowicz v. Williams, — F.Supp.2d —, 2009 WL 4929111 (N.D. Ill. December 21, 2009) (This is a case from last month that has already gotten some attention in the legal blogosphere, and is worth reporting on here in spite of the already-existing commentary.) Plaintiffs sued two individual defendants for defamation over content those defendants posted [...]
Browsewrap website terms and conditions enforceable
January 5th, 2010
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Major v. McAllister, — S.W.3d —, 2009 WL 4959941 (Mo. App. December 23, 2009) The Missouri Court of Appeals has issued an opinion that reflects a realistic grasp of how people use the web, and also serves as a definitive nod to self-responsibility. The court refused to accept a website end user’s argument that she [...]
