Sanofi-Aventis, the French pharmaceutical company, owns the trademark ACOMPLIA for the anti-obesity drug rimonabart (not yet approved here).  Medical Week News owns the domain name ACOMPLIAREPORT.COM and publishes news about the drug.  Sanofi filed a UDRP action with WIPO.  Medical Week News, represented by EFF, filed a declaractory jdugment action, complaint here.

Good ongoing discussion of Grokster here, via WSJ.

Prof. Goldman suggests that you not you name your company anything that ends is a -STER, in a thorough analysis here.

. . . I was advising my clients not to actively induce infringement before Grokster came out.

S Ct. reverses 9th Cir. 9 – 0, articulating an ‘affiramtive steps to foster infringement’ standard.  Text of Grokster decision.

Important language:

 . . . one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is…

Sears lawsuit, alleging that “Where Else? Menards?” infringed its “Sears. Where Else?” trademark, deemed  ‘so lacking in merit as to make this an exceptional case justifying an award of reasonable attorney’s fees and expenses’ which in this case was $2.5 million.  Via suntimes.com. 

TTABlog: TORRE MUGA for wine not confusingly similar to TORRES for wine, brandy and liquer.

. . . from Prof. Goldman merely by following this link.

ICANN announced recently that it has begun negotiations with an applicant for another ‘sponsored’ (non-open) top level domain, .XXX.

There has been a fair amount of coverage, for and against.

My initial reaction is (with the proviso that the public information to assess these things is always insufficient): .XXX seems plausible for what it is but it …