I thought link-blocking software was going to make these disputes go away, but the Danish newspaper guild is one of several entities accusing linkers of trademark infringement (and, more plausibly, unfair competition).  In 1998 I wrote a paper entitled “Dismantling the Web With Trademark and Copyright Law.”  The hypothesis was that the Web was anti-thetical to everything media needed to maintian status quo.  Encouraging linking was like encouraging channel-changing, and had to be removed (or seriously limited).  Will the Web look more and mpore like cable tv?

Question for discussion: if link-blocking software is readily available and a website doesn’t employ it, does that imply a license to link?

In defending its policy to oppose hyperlinks (see story above), the managing director of a Danish newspaper organization stated: “We consider it unfair to base your business upon the works of others.”

This news story reports an Austrian supreme court decision stripping Sony of its trademark and holding that WALKMAN is generic for hand-held portable tape-players.  The text of the decision is not yet available.

Question for discusion:  If WALKMAN is generic in Austria, can I assemble them in Austria ans sell them into the rest of the EEC?  The 1998 ECJ SILHOUETTE case applies to the exhaustion of trademark rights, not the use of generic terms (for the text of the SILHOUETTE decison, click on caselaw and use ‘Silhouette’ as a search term when you go to the ECJ site.).  Here’s more on parallel goods within the EEC.

Registrant registered ralphlaurensheets.com and ralphlaurensheets.net.  It warehoused the names.  It did not respond to demand letters.  It did not respond to the UDRP.  And this panelist found that bad faith was not shown.  This decision shows as much as anything else how screwed up the UDRP is. 

There’s an article on the front page of the Wall Street Journal today about the town of Parma, Italy, home of not only Parma ham but Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese as well (also known as Parmesan cheese).  The ham consortium of Parma is involved in a dispute with Asda, a British supermarket chain, over the use of appellations of origin, indicators of geogrpahic source (such as “apples of Oregon”).  The Parma merchants argue that hams raised and cured in Parma, but sliced and packaged in Britain, cannot be referred to properly as Parma Hams.  The Brits have won the latest round before the European Court of Justice, decision on its website.  Click on caselaw, then use ‘ASDA’ as a search term on the ECJ website.  When  Appellations of origin are big business.  Ask the lawyers for scotch whiskey or champagne sparkling wine. Parma Ham commands $20 a pound in the U.S. – that’s more than any nationally advertised branded ham.  Next time you’re in a good restaurant, look at the menu.  Chances are you will see several appellations of origin, and no brands.

See the story about the self-infringing shirts and the shirts themselves.

Don’t let this happen to you.  This Northern District of New York case doesn’t really represent new law but it illustrates that “Creeping Equities” is still a common problem which can befall a strong mark in a narrow field.  Plainitff had used TYCOS on sphygmomanometers and stethoscopes since 1909.  Defendant, one of the world’s larger companies, used TYCO as a secondary trading name when it entered the healthcare field several years ago.   Several years ago plaintiff probably would have lost a dilution action, as its reputation was in a specific field.  Now equity bars plaintiff from undoing the resulting reverse confusion.  

UPDATE on June 7: In view of the indictment of the CEO of Tyco this week, one wonders if Welch Allyn is experiencing schadenfreude.

Ben Edelman (a Harvard senior!!) has released another behaviorial report, this time on .name, available at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/edelman/name-restrictions/.  He came up with 6000 names that violated the eligibility rules, such as, well, harvard.university.name and allergy.tylenolallergysinus.name.  GNR, the .name registry, receives approximately $11 for each registration, valid or not. 

The State of the Domain Name report released this weekend at www.sotd.info (sic) which estimates that GNR has registered approximately 75,000 names to date.  I suspect that GNR has spent at least $800k to date  (on great give-away bags at the Montevideo reception, for example). 

Taking into consideration these 6000 names and then the cyberpiracies (I have a matter against a guy who took about a hundred famous names) and other ineligible names, we are talking about maybe 10-15% of GNR’s revenues.  One conclusion is possible: If a registry or registrar were to strictly enforce its own rules, it would put itself out of business.

Remember the reason NSI gave for not enforcing the .org charter?  It didn’t want to punish the registrants who were telling the truth.  Also, there was the $70 a name.

UPDATE – June 7 – GNR has posted a response on www.icannwatch.org.