So my crack IT department (Nathan) ran a web server statistics report and we learned the following:

The five most popular Trademark Blog items ever were:

1. Metsoline.com

2. Baltimore Ravens / Stupid Nigerian scam joke

3. The Marriot Sisters

4. The Trademark Ramifications of Spoofing

5.  China Re-directing Google

The term most often used to get here is TRADEMARK.  The second most popular term was MARRIOT SISTERS.  I am under no illusions on that point – those were people less interested in appellations of origin than of pictures of skinny women wearing panties.  I am sorry to disappoint that audience but I will not run salacious material until necessary.

Other common terms used to get here include BEN EDELMAN,  AFLAC DUCK and ALBURQUERQUE ISOTOPES.

There were no discernable differences in traffic levels by day of the week or hour of the day.  This suggests that the audience is some mixture of international, insomniac and robotic.

Finally, Metasearch 2.0 is a hit.  Extrapolating the past two weeks of growth, two years from now every man, woman and child on the planet will conduct three free international trademark searches a day.

The most complete coverage of today’s Eldred hearing is at Copyfight, including an in-person account.  With due respect to this viewpoint, it seems that at least two rationales, the first being the harmonization with Europe argument, and the second being the fact that there have been previous copyright term extensions which would implicitly be unconstitutional if this one is, will likely provide the basis for upholding this term extension.  However the arguments Lessig provides now will likely make this the last term extension ever (Lessig and Hilary Rosen will be in their 60’s, Jack Valenti will be in his 100’s, when Congress considers the issue again).

UPDATE: Early reports in the hearing from LawMeme and the NY Times.

Someone other than the country of New Zealand registered newzealand.biz.  The country of New Zealand, or more accurately, its monarch, Queen Elizabeth, brought a STOP proceeding.  Anyway, the panel goes through some tortured discussion as to whether it can be said that New Zelanad owns common law rights in NEW ZEALAND as a trademark, and they conclude that it cannot be so said.  However, the Panel then indicates that it did read the recent WIPO2 Report on domain names, which, while it doesn’t reach a conclusion about how to protect country names, does indicate that there is some merit in the idea.  Then the panel reads the STOP policy which says that while the complainant needs to establish trademark rights in most of the time relevant provisions, Clause 4.lii1(a) says that the complainant merely has to establish “legitimate rights,” not trademark rights, in the case of multiple IP claimants (the case here).  We will probably not see anymore STOP proceedings so there is likely no opportunity for a paenl to point out that that clause should probably be read in the light of all the other clauses which explicitly requrie trademark rights.  The Panel then held that New Zealand does hold legitimate rights in the name NEW ZEALAND, primarily because it is New Zealand, and holds for the Queen.  Rule Britannia.

Here, by the way, for those of you who are countries or direct traffic away from countries, is the link to the 2d Circuit decision in Virtual Countries v. Republic of South Africa, which involves southafrica.com.

I would imagine that the owners of DISCOUNTMARLBOROS.COM (see background here) would cite the BARGAINBEANIES.COM case (see background here).  Of course in both situations, the “Aftermarket” distributors were using the domain name to point to a site where they sold all their goods of different brands and not just those under the mark identified in the domain name.

(MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) is protesting the use of DAMMADD (Dads and Moms Against Drug Delaers).  Via Newsday.

Suggested best practices for search engines, via Searchenginewatch.com.  Suggestions include avoidance of the sale of trademarks as keywords, and proper disclosure of paid results.

Nathan has hooked up Japan to the absolutely free Schwimmerlegal International Trademark Metasearch.  You can now conduct a combined dead-hit search from the trademark registries of the U.S., Canada,  Madrid (WIPO), EC (CTM) and Japanese databases.  I tested out the Japanese database with DRAGONBALL Z, TOYOTA, YOMIURI GIANTS, POCARI SWEAT and KONAMI (purveyor of YU-GI-OH!) to be sure it was working.

Results are returned in several minutes in a stunning green and blue table, suitable for emailing, using a simple cut and paste technique.  More countries to be added, dependent upon time, money and programmer’s level of concentration.

A dead-hit search is not a substitute for a full search evaluated by qualified counsel.  That would be where I come in.

Important domain name case from Seventh Circuit  (decision by Posner, J.) upholding use of bargainbeanies.com by third party (analysis to follow): Ty v. Perryman.

UPDATE:  You can use the domain name BARGAINBEANIES.COM if you are really selling bargain Beanies.  You cannot use it to sell competitive plush bean-bag animals.  Also, if you get caught over-reaching in Judge Posner’s courtroom (Ty v. Publications Int’l) a first time, you will probably lose the second time.

Strange Dicta: The owners of the THERMOS trademark will be distressed to read the Judge’s view that the THERMOS no longer functions as a trademark.  And the genericide of the arbitrary yerm ASPIRIN kind of rebuts Posner’s theory regarding the relation of descriptiveness to genericness.

Stranger Dicta: Posner started a strange discussion of dilution law spinning a fact pattern involving a hypothetical TIFFANY retaurant in Kuala Lumpur.  I’ve represented TIFFANY & CO. going after various businesses named TIFFANY in Kuala Lumpur so I found that passage of interest.  Apparently, it was a good thing we didn’t argue the case under U.S. dilution law.