The ABANet article on blawgs (with my picture) hit the web yesterday while I was still clearing customs in Houston.  Hopefully readers who checked out the site enjoyed the nice picture of the parrot.  I am honored to be mentioned in the same article as some of my favorite blogs, SCOTUS, How Appealing and Bag and Baggage.  I also have to thank Ernie as usual, for putting in a good word.

Today’s Wall Street Journal’s lead article discusses the cat-and-mouse game between Google and those who seek to “game” Google in order to boost their rankings.  Of interest is the discussion of the lawsuit brought by SearchKing against Google regarding Google’s tweaking of its search algorithm (and the resulting bad effects on SearchKing’s methods).  In that case Google is arguing that its search results are in essence opinions of a website, and therefore protectable speech.

I’m of two views of Google.  An astounding amount of my traffic results from people using various trademark related terms (and the term MECCA COLA).  Because my site is updated regularly (this past week being an exception), and because there are apparently numerous links to this site, I place very highly on Google.  Accordingly, the folk at Google are clearly geniuses, critical to the Trademark Blog’s success.

On the other hand, when someone uses TRADEMARK BLOG as a Google term, Google collects some amount of money from LEGALZOOM.COM and LITMANLAW.COM for paid advertisements.  Neither the advertisers nor Google share that money with me.  In this sense Google is a craven free-loader – exploiting an advertising medium not paying for content (dramatic overstatement indicator on).  Some day the Ninth Circuit may decide the Playboy/Excite keyword case and we may get some guidance on “free rides.”  In the meanwhile, Google does me (and the Internet) much more good than harm.

 

 

Zippo Lighter announced that its has recently received a trademark registration for the shape of its lighters.  It distributed the picture (top above).  I looked at the PTO database and can’t find the registration to which they refer (another reminder that databases can be incomplete), but I did find their two-year old registration of a two-dimensional drawing of a lighter (above).  Zippo also has an abandoned application for the sound a Zippo makes when opening.