A reminder to my Chicago-area readers — please consider attending tomorrow’s (2/19) meeting of the Chicago Bar Association’s Cyberlaw and Data Privacy Committee meeting. 12:15 p.m. at 321 South Plymouth Court in Chicago [map]. Dave Donoghue will be speaking about recent cyberlaw developments in the Northern District of Illinois. Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back. The event is free.
Blog
New guide to open source issues
[Update: Thanks, Dad, for alerting me to the typo. It’s a relief to know I’ll always have at least one reader!]
The Software Freedom Law Center, one of the leading influencers in the free and open source software movement, has released what appears to be a helpful guide on understanding the legal issues associated with the use and development of open source software. As anyone involved with open source (whether on the legal side or the technical side) knows, these kinds of issues are erudite at best, and incomprehensible at worst. Having a comprehensive review in one place provides a helpful tool. Thanks to my friend Alex Newson for pointing out this publication.
Sponsored listing trademark action survives motion to dismiss
T.D.I. Intern., Inc. v. Golf Preservations, Inc., (Slip Op.) 2008 WL 294531 (E.D.Ky. January 31, 2008)
Plaintiffs T.D.I. International and XGD Systems sued their former employee Samson Bailey and his company Golf Preservations for, among other things, violation of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. §1051 et seq. Plaintiffs alleged that defendants’ purchase of plaintiffs’ trademarks to trigger competitive advertising on Google and Yahoo was trademark infringement and unfair competition.
Defendants moved pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) to dismiss the complaint, but the court denied the motion. It found that under the Twombly standard, plaintiffs had alleged facts sufficient to state a claim to relief that was plausible on its face.
Predictably, defendants had argued that the purchase of plaintiffs’ marks as keywords did not constitute a “use” of the marks as provided in the Lanham Act at 15 U.S.C. § 1127. They relied heavily on Interactive Products Corp. v. a2z Mobile Office Solutions, Inc., 326 F.3d 687, 695 (6th Cir.2003) (a case involving the appearance of a mark in the post-domain path of a URL), and 1-800 Contacts, Inc. v. When U.com, Inc., 414 F.3d 400 (2d Cir.2005) (involving pop-up advertisements triggered by page content and user activities).
Plaintiffs relied on a number of cases to argue that the purchase of keywords was a use as defined in the Lanham Act, and also (correctly) asserted that the scenario of buying keywords to trigger advertising is notably different from use in a post-domain URL (as in Interactive Products) and unseen triggering of pop-up advertisements (as in 1-800 Contacts). Given the split of authority and the corresponding “uncertain state of the law on the specific issue presented in [the] case,” the Court sided with plaintiffs and found that defendants’ arguments were not sufficient to warrant dismissal.
Network Solutions’s forum selection clause enforced
Doe v. Network Solutions, LLC, No. 07-5115, 2008 WL 191419 (N.D. Cal. January 22, 2008)
Plaintiff Doe alleged violations of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and similar California statutes when he discovered that personal and financial information about him had allegedly been obtained from a webmail account he established with Network Solutions. Citing to the forum selection clause in the click-wrap agreement Doe had entered into several times, Network Solutions moved to dismiss the action under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(3) for improper venue.
The court granted the motion to dismiss, finding that the claims brought by plaintiff were within the scope of the clause, and that enforcement would not be unreasonable. The matter was dismissed without prejudice to refile in the Eastern District of Virginia.
The forum selection clause provided, in relevant part, that it governed “any disputes between [customer] and Network Solutions under, arising out of, or related in any way to this Agreement. . . .” In holding that the claims fell within the scope of the clause, the court observed that although there were no claims for breach of contract, the claims arose out of plaintiff’s status as a customer and related to the services, thus implicating the contractual relationship. Moreover, the language “under, arising out of, or related in any way to [the] agreement” led the court to conclude that the clause was to be construed broadly.
In determining that enforcement of the clause would not be unreasonable, the court rejected plaintiff’s argument that it would contravene public policy, as the choice of law provision (naming Virginia) would preclude recovery under various California statutes. The court noted that California law had not expressed any policy against enforcement of a forum selection clause in the context of the claims asserted, and that a clause providing a forum which permits different or less favorable remedies is not, alone, a basis for invalidating the clause.
Collection of commentary on the proposed Microsoft/Yahoo deal
Go here: http://micro-hoo.com
Seeking a speaker for 2/19 event. Is it you?
Update: It’s going to be Dave Donoghue, who authors the very informative Chicago IP Litigation Blog. If you’re not already reading Dave’s blog, you should be. He does a bangup job of tracking intellectual property decisions coming out of the federal courts here in Chicago. At the 2/19 meeting, Dave will use his perspective gained from paying close attention to the local dockets to speak on the topic of “Northern District of Illinois Cyberlaw Trends”. If you’re in the area, or will be on Februray 19, please consider attending this noon-time event at the Chicago Bar Association building 321 S. Plymouth.
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I’m the vice-chair of the Chicago Bar Association’s Cyberlaw and Data Privacy Committee, and we have a meeting coming up at noon on Tuesday, February 19, 2008. Problem is, our speaker prospects are falling through.
If you can be in Chicago on 2/19 and would like to address a group of about 20-30 technology savvy attorneys on a topic of interest to you about law and technology, drop me a line [internetcases -at- gmail dot com]. I need to know ASAP, so please respond by the end of the day tomorrow (Friday, 2/1/08).
CLE credit is of course available. Illinois rules allow you to get up to six hours credit for preparation time for each hour you talk.
Finding ATLAS COPCO and ATLAS CASPIAN confusingly similar, court awards in rem ACPA relief to unopposed plaintiff
Atlas Copco AB v. Atlascopcoiran.com, No. 07-1208, 2008 WL 149128 (E.D. Va. January 8, 2008)
Unable to hail the overseas registrants of domain names, including atlascaspian.com and atlascopcoiran.com into a U.S. court, plaintiff Atlas Copco AB sought in rem relief against the domain names under 15 U.S.C. §1125(d)(2)(a). After the defendants failed to answer the complaint, Atlas Copco moved for summary judgment, relying on the allegations of its verified complaint.
The court granted the motion and ordered the domain names transferred.
In finding that the defendants had engaged in cyberpiracy, the court looked at the “dominant or salient portions of the marks” at issue – the plaintiff’s mark and the marks comprising the offending domain names.
For you trademark experts out there, query whether you might characterize the following analysis as a bit of a stretch:
The dominant portion of each of the Defendant Domain Names is “ATLAS COPCO” or “ATLAS.” These “dominant” terms are paired with the generic terms “CASPIAN” and “IRAN,” which are generic geographic terms that do not distinguish the Defendant Domain Names from the ATLAS COPCO trademark. An internet user might reasonably assume that the geographic term “CASPIAN” and “IRAN” were added to the ATLAS COPCO trademark by the Plaintiffs to identify its geographic location.
It looks like another motivation for the court’s finding was some of the subterfuge on the sites at the offending domain names. Turns out some of them pointed to “copycat” websites bearing “Atlas Caspian” logos confusingly similar to the plaintiff’s trademark, and linked to phishing sites bearing the actual Atlas Copco mark.
Off topic: Sometimes I take this train
Click here if the video is not showing up in the RSS feed.
Night before last I spent three hours on the train ride home. The video above shows the reason for the delay. The train I took that night was backed up and delayed while they sorted out the mess in Hinsdale. Had I left work a few minutes earlier I would have been on the second train, i.e., the one that caused the minivan to burst into flames. Would have been pretty exciting/scary. Thank goodness no one was hurt.
Court rejects constitutional challenges to obscenity statutes in prosecution of adult website owner
U.S. v. Little, No. 07-170, 2008 WL 151875 (M.D. Fla. January 16, 2008)
The operator of the Max Hardcore website was indicted under 18 U.S.C. §§1462 and 1465 for distributing allegedly obscene video files which agents downloaded in Tampa, Florida. Max Hardcore moved to dismiss the indictment, raising a number of constitutional challenges to the prosecution. The court rejected each of the defendant’s arguments and denied the motion.
Statutes not facially unconstitutional
The court declined to accept the defendant’s argument that because of the evolving nature of substantive due process law, prior Supreme Court decisions upholding the federal obscenity statutes were no longer valid. It also refused the defendant’s argument that the constitutional right to privately posses obscene materials should translate into a corresponding right to distribute such material.
Statutes not unconstitutional as applied
The defendant also launched a couple of challenges to the application of the Miller test, set forth in the Supreme Court’s decision of Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 93 S.Ct. 2607 (1973). Under the Miller test, the finder of fact determines whether material is obscene by applying the following test: (a) Whether “the average person, applying contemporary community standards’” would find that the work taken as a whole, appeals to prurient interest; (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
Max Hardcore’s challenge to the Miller test dealt with the requirement that the works at issue be “taken as a whole.” The defendants argued that because of the interconnected nature of the Web, it would be impossible to know what the term “taken as a whole” means, and it would similarly be impossible to determine the community standards against which the works should be evaluated. At the very least, the defendant argued, the entire Max Hardcore site should be considered the work “taken as a whole,” and not just the individual video files.
With little analysis, the court sided with the government, holding that the individual files – and not the whole website – should be the works “taken as a whole.” And the court concluded that the absence of a universal community standard was okay. Citing to U.S. v. Bagnell, 679 F.2d 826 (11th Cir. 1982), it held that “[i]t is constitutionally permissible to subject defendants in obscenity prosecutions to varying community standards of the various judicial districts into which they transmit obscene material.”
Damage under CFAA must involve some diminution of the system to be actionable
Garelli Wong & Assoc. v. Nichols, No. 07-6227, 2008 WL 161790 (N.D. Ill. January 16, 2008)
A recent decision from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois presents a pretty typical fact pattern (employee leaves with sensitive data to work for a competitor), but also gives some useful guidance on the scope of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. 1030 et seq. (CFAA).
Plaintiff Garelli Wong and Associates provides temporary placement for accounting professionals. When defendant Nichols worked for Garelli, he signed an NDA and learned a lot about the company’s clients, employees and strategy.
So when Garelli learned that Nichols allegedly copied a bunch of information before jumping ship, it sued. In addition to breach of contract, Garelli claimed Nichols violated the CFAA.
Nichols moved to dismiss the CFAA claim pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). The court granted the motion. It held that the CFAA requires a plaintiff to plead both damage and loss, and that Garelli failed to sufficiently plead both.
The CFAA defines “damage” as “impairment to the integrity or availability of data, a program, a system, or information.” Citing approvingly to the unpublished case of ResDev v. Lot Builders, 2005 WL 1924743 (M.D. Fla. August 10, 2005), which held that the word “integrity” required “some diminution in the completeness or useability of data or information on a computer system,” the court sided with Nichols. He had contended that CFAA liability does not arise merely by copying data. A violation of the CFAA requires more — some adverse effect on the system.
Garelli’s loss allegation essentially got Twomblied. The court found that Garelli’s allegations of loss — essentially a formulaic recitation of the CFAA’s $5,000 threshold language — did not provide the grounds of the entitlement to relief with more than labels and conclusions.