OECD on ccTLD Administration, including review of trademark and whois policies.

If you only read Dave Farber’s list, or this news article or this press release from registrant, then you might agree with the comments that Volvo’s complaint against the Volo Auto Museum of Volo, Illinois does sound like one more of those David/Goliath misguided things.  However, you wouldn’t know which domain names were involved.  If you were Volvo’s trademark lawyer and your international website was VOLVOCARS.COM, and you learned that an entity that sold cars had registered VOLOCARS.COM and VOLOAUTOS.COM, what would you do?   It’s more complex than these accounts make it out to be.

That said, Volvo may still not have this domain name dispute thing straight.

The front page of today’s Wall Street Journal has “As Apple Stalls, Steve Jobs Looks to Digital Entertainment” which gives some credence to the view that in the end, the computer hardware business will save the recorded music business.  But, to show you my skewed view of the world, here is the part that caught my eye, describing negotiations between Pixar and Disney:

Mr. Jobs was intimately involved in all aspects of the negotiations.  At one point . . . he haggled with Disney over how the two companies’ logos would appear in film credits and advertising.

Now there’s someone who appreciates what I do for a living.

Marketwatch on the ‘bubble’ in search stocks such as Overture and Ask Jeeves (registration is required after the story is 24 hours old).  In addition to the reasons specified in the article why these stocks are perhaps over-priced, there is another one: legal uncertainty.  If keyword sales helps a company sell binoculars more efficently to people searching for finches, than that’s fanstastic.  What’s unsettled at this time is the legal status of Search Company selling [Trademark of A] as a keyword to A’s competitor.  The lower court decision in Playboy v. Excite is, imho, a badly reasoned case that should not predict how the 9th Circuit (and other circuits) will rule.  I have not seen figures indicating what percentage of targeted advertising sales come from keywords consisting of trademarks (some companies, such as Google, impose terms and conditions which would appear to help it lower its exposure to litigation arising from a third-party protest).

Furthermore, the FTC has already shown that it is paying its attention to the manner in which search engines display paid-for search results in comparison to non-paid-for results.  This suggests that not everyone is taking heed.  Stock-buyers beware.

Depicted above: a product from the company that appears to have purchased ‘bubble’ as a keyword from Google.  This product is known as ‘economy bubble.’

So you will notice two things about the metasearch.  The first is that Canada is not working.  That is Canada’s fault.  Second, we are starting a registration process.  The first time you log onto the metasearch or the domain dossier you will be asked to supply an email address.  It has to be a real email address because we will immediately send you a verification link.  Then you click a couple of times, set a cookie, and forget this ever happened (just like when you use nytimes.com).  Your data is maintained under the SchwimmerLegal privacy policy, which is not me pantomiming locking my lips and throwing away the key.  We will not reveal the data to third parties.  We will not send you email advertising low mortgage rates. We do not log (have never logged) the actual search terms.  We may send you IP alerts and information about the firm.

Some unknown number of you are reading the Blog using aggregators and may or may not have visited the Website itself.  If not, you are missing out on nifty features we have used to decorate the from-the-factory Userland template. 

Starting from the lower left, above the Creative Commons license, is a link to ccTLD reference information.

Above that is the Domain Dossier, which allows you to input a string and returns whois data for the major gTLDs (warning – this tool requires patience during U.S. business hours).

Then there is the recently repaired International Trademark Metasearch, a free tool that allows you to search  trademark registries in 11 major jurisdictions (including the CTM and Madrid).

The contact button allows you to contact me and retain my firm for your domestic and international trademark, copyright and domain name needs.

The instant message button allows you to instant message me, assuming I’m at that computer at the time (the button says “I’m Online” when what it means is: “this computer is on.”).

Going to the right side of the frame, we see the calendar, which should probably be labeled “browse archives by date.”

And finally, we see the recently repaired Google tool, which allows you to search the Blog’s archives.

Thanks, enjoy your visit.

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The Wall Street Journal’s Cranky Consumer column (Page D2 today, no link) compared search engines on various tasks – finding a specific product, finding a local business, etc.  Recommendations – Froogle for finding the radio,  AOL’s yellow page service for zip-code based searching of local businesses.  Singled out for criticism – MSN, for being the least clear about graphically distinguishing paid- from un-paid search results.

I tried out MSN’s search and I see what the Journal is talking about.  In fact, if I hadn’t read the Journal’s article, I wouldn’t have been able to figure out which hit results were paid-for (they have a small ‘about’ link next to them which, I imagine, no one clicks) and which hits were on page one because of relevance. One has to question why MSN goes to these lengths to obscure what Google’s communicates easily).

Search engines can function as powerful brand directories but not if there is a disconnect between user expectations and user experience.

First the SARS virus.  Then the photo of the LV SARS mask with claims that this is real Vuitton.  Then the allegations of sub-viral marketing (no pun intended here).  Then the debunking.  Detective work here, here and here..  Via Boing Boing and Tech Law Advisor.