Techcrunch: Scrabulous Gets Wiped Off Facebook:

Long outplayed by two Indian brothers, Hasbro finally delivers a massive counter blow to Scrabulous, one of the most loved games on Facebook. Scrabulous fans in North America will see the following message when they try to play the game:
Scrabulous is disabled for U.S. and Canadian users until further notice. If you would like to stay informed about developments in this matter, please click here.

Coverage from Alley Insider here.
UPDATE: NY Times reports that Scrabulous requested that Facebook disable Scrabulous for US and Canada

KansasCity.com: “Insurance company for Collective Brands dsiputes liability for verdict“:

American Guarantee & Liability Insurance Co. late Thursday sued in U.S. District Court in Kansas pertaining to the verdict returned in May against Collective, which owns and operates Payless ShoeSource, a 4,600-store discount footwear chain.
Adidas America in 2001 sued Payless for copying its striped footwear design.
A jury awarded Adidas the $305 million, including $137 million in punitive damages, saying Payless willfully copied and sold variations of the Adidas athletic footwear.

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. . . or perhaps it was the trademark enforcement.
Wall Street Journal article on trademark owners policing use of character costumers by local party performers: “Why Dora the Explorer Can’t Come To Your Kid’s Birthday Party“:

. . . .Though the walk-about “Dora” had the expected pageboy haircut and backpack, her expression was blank and her legs appeared out of proportion to the rest of her body. “When Dora came out,” Mrs. Sorkin says, “none of the kids would go to Dora, including my daughter, and a few of the kids started crying.”
Elvira Grau, who owns Space Odyssey USA, where Mrs. Sorkin held her daughter’s party, says the costume companies that service her parties try to make their costumes look sufficiently different from the trademarked characters to avoid lawsuits. When Mrs. Sorkin complained to her that Dora was “hideous,” Mrs. Grau gave her a $250 credit. “But I told her, ‘You can’t have the real Dora. If you want the real Dora, call Nickelodeon.’ ”

Every sentence in this article is both funny and extremely sad.
There is a sentiment expressed by Justice Stevens in Moseley v V Secret, that where there is no confusion, a tarnishing use reflects on the tarnisher and not the trademark owner. It might be the case that where there is no confusion that the local children’s clown is ‘licensed’ by anyone, that if the clown stumbles around drunk or otherwise behaves inappropriately, in a character costume, that that reflects on the clown, and not on the costume.
Comment away.

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Facebook has sued in California a German company, StudiVZ, for copyright infringement. lIllustration and background from Kasi-Blog here. TechCrunch coverage here. I’ll post the complaint when it’s in hand.
Update: The case is Facebook, Inc. v Studivz, Ltd., Verlagsgruppe George von Holtzbrinck, Holtzbrinck Networks, Holtzbrinck Ventures, filed July 17 2008, 28:1332. The case is designated for ECF so I assume the complaint will be available on Pacer (attn: Northern District of California practitioners – is that correct?)
UPDATE: News.com.au reports that StudiVZ has filed a complaint in Germany requesting a declaration of non-infringement.

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Consumer Law & Policy Blog: “Can the RNC forbid the use of an elephant or “GOP” to identfy Republicans?“:

Although these references have been in popular use since the 1870’s, and owe more to Thomas Nast than to the Republicans themselves, back in the 1997 and 1995, respectively, the RNC trademarked the initials “GOP” and a stylized elephant showing three stars across its body. Relying on these trademarks, the RNC has been trying to suppress the use of the initials or an elephant to refer to Republicans generally, such as in the images that appear above and on the left.

In yesterday’s decision in Tiffany v eBay, the Court noted:

Notwithstanding the significance of the online counterfeiting problem, it is clear that Tiffany invested relatviely modest resources to combat the problem. In fiscal year 2003, Tiffany budgeted approximately $763,000 to the issue, representing less than 0.05 percent of its net sales for that year . . .
More specifically, Tiffany’s time dedicated to monitoring the eBay website and preparing NOCIs [complaints under eBay’s VeRO program) was limited. . . a paralegal . . devoted two days a week to reviewing the eBay website and answering emails from buyers and sellers involving removed listings. . . Tiffany’s security manager also devoted one day a week to monitoring and reporting on the eBay website. . .
Decision, page 18.
Is 0.05 percent of net sales a lot or a little?
Is two days of a paralegal’s time a lot or a little for a brand that’s alleging 46,000 allleged infringements in a year?