Registering a domain name merely to sell it held to be a violation of .biz’s charter resriction that the name be used for a bona fide commercial purpose, under the Restrictions Dispute Resolution Policy.  Same registrant took the .info version as well, and lost that under the UDRP in a consolidated decision.

A local realtor, er, real estate agent, brought this Trademark Trial and Appeal Board action against the National Association of Realtors to cancel its registration for REALTOR as generic.  NAR prevailed but the issue in chief wasn’t tried.  Plaintiff  argued that REALTOR was already a generic term when she had been a member of NAR up unitl 1996…

Princess Diana did not effectively protect the exploitation of her likeness in the U.S. during her lifetime, and her successor in interest, the Princess Diana Fund, failed in the lower court level against the Franklin Mint, which had been making Diana merchandise pretty much from the day of her wedding to Charles.  This Ninth Circuit decision…

My practice is doing fine but this is still depressing.  Interesting discussion of the types of names people are selecting these days.

This article regarding Disney possibly opposing the Genessee District Libary Book Mouse isn’t as meaningful if you can’t see the actual mouse.

50 Chinese fans enter the World Cup stadium in Kwangju, South Korea, and security is alerted.  Preparations are made to intercept them and then averted at the last second.  Why?  Because they were all wearing hats bearing the trademark SAMSUNG, and Samsung is not an official sponsor of the World Cup.  “They’re walking billboards now”…

David Schwimmer (the actor, not my five month old son), played a character named Martin in a movie.  As a result, movie reviews of “Six Days, Seven Nights,” (mostly pans), dominated any Google search for “Martin Schwimmer.”  Finally, as a result of this blog, I have vanquished him to the third O in…

Most of this Gigalaw how-to article on linking and framing isn’t objectionable, but the best practice suggestion, “Don’t Deep Link Without Permission,” seems like overkill.  There is no caselaw to suggest that deep linking is per se illegal.  The two cases cited involved more than linking, but presumably misappropriation of data. 

Disclaimer: Not being your…