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UDRP - Bad Faith Registration

In a UDRP proceeding against a cybersquatter, the Complainant has to prove three elements. The third element is bad faith registration and use. Some decisions have interpreted this requirement as being bad faith registration only. However, the traditional view that both bad faith registration and bad faith use is required, was supported, by majority, in the recent SimplyBusiness.com decision.

See also this DomainNameWire article.

Note that in Australia, under the auDRP, the requirement is different -- bad faith registration or bad faith use ("domain name has been registered or subsequently used in bad faith").

Keywords in Canada

Last month (February 2011) in Private Career Training Institutions Agency v Vancouver Career College (Burnaby) Inc, the Court of Appeal for British Columbia refused to grant an injunction preventing the use of names of competitors in Google and Yahoo keywords as part of internet advertising.

iCyte

When you are doing electronic research on the Internet, the iCyte tool is useful. See www.icyte.com. You can use it to save and annotate your research. It is free for students.

Week 2 - Google and Social Media

On Monday we will be looking at the business models of companies who operate primarily on the Internet. We will look at the rules you must comply with when using their sites (in addition to all other laws that apply), and the benefits/criticisms of their business models. In particular, we will focus on Google and Facebook, but will also try to cover Amazon, eBay and Twitter. You should be familar with the products/services offered by these companies, and their terms and conditions.


What are the risks of doing business with these organisations?


For some background you can look at:

Don't Be Evil

Google Product Offerings

Google Watch

Google Book Project

AdWords - Australia

Facebook and Privacy

Click fraud

Endorsements - US position

Study guides

For those in the class asking about study guides, paper copies have been mailed to you, and you should receive them within the next few days. In the meantime, you can access an electronic copy under the "Learning Resources" tab of the Blackboard site.

7s Domain Name Decision

Is it cybersquatting to point a domain name to a website that has no relationship with the semantic meaning of the domain name?

See 7(s) v. Luo decision

Discussion: Domain Name Wire

Patenting Business Methods

Review of patentable subject matter in Australia

The Australian Advisory Council on Intellectual Property has released its review of patentable subject matter. The Advisory Council is an independent body appointed by the government, and advises the Federal Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research on intellectual property matters.

Click here to view the report

Click here to view the Advisory Council's Media Release

Chasing Pirates

See Inside Microsoft's War Room

Copyright in databases

In December 2010, the Full Federal Court decided that there was no copyright in White Pages and Yellow Pages telephone directories.
Chief Justice Keane was convinced by the respondents argument that the White and Yellow Pages “were compiled, not by the individuals engaged to facilitate the process, but by a computerised process of storing, selecting, ordering and arranging the data to produce the directories in the form in which they were published.” [7-8]

iiNet copyright case - Full Federal Court Appeal Decision

iiNet succeeded in its appeal, but on narrower grounds. The case concerns whether an ISP is liable for copyright infringement of its users.
See case, and SMH article, and ZDnet

Google Modifies Its Algorithm

Google has changed its algorithm that returns search results, to remove content farm websites. See NYT.

Fined For Conduct of Facebook Fans

In his judgment Justice Finkelstein held that: "while it cannot be said that Allergy Pathway was responsible for the initial publication of testimonials (the original publisher was the third party who posted the testimonials on Allergy Pathway's Twitter and Facebook pages) it is appropriate to conclude that Allergy Pathway accepted responsibility for the publications when it knew of them and decided not to remove them. Hence it became the publisher of the testimonials."

In responding to the judgment, ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel said: "Many corporations now use Facebook "Fan" pages and Twitter accounts to promote their businesses. This outcome confirms that any business that decides to leave public testimonials or other comments on their Facebook and Twitter pages will be held responsible if they are false, misleading or deceptive."

See ACCC Press Release

ACCC v. Allergy Pathway [2011] FCA 74


Use of Domain Names is Passing Off - UK Decision

In Lifestyle Management Ltd v Frater, a former agent of Lifestyle Management Ltd has been found by the UK High Court, on an application for an interim injunction, to have committed acts of passing off by pointing certain domain names to websites that closely resembled his former principal's website.

See also this case note.

Keywords abuse - damages of $292,000

A law firm specialising in disability claims was awarded $292,000 by a California court, because of a competitor’s use of its mark as a Google AdWord.


Domain Name Decision

Recent domain name decision regarding bad faith.

The Law Firm of the Future

An interesting article about legal services.

Also, an article about Twitter and law firms.

Internet Law Resource Centre

BNA has launched its Internet Law Resource Centre. It costs a heap of money, but there is a 15 day free trial.

Manipulating Google Search Results

The NY Times has a very good story about how JC Penney manipulated Google search engine results. Google did not catch this until the NYT pointed this out. Once Google decided to act, Google manually changed the results. For many searches, JC Penny went from 1st place to about 75th place.


Google and Privacy

On Wednesday, the FTC closed its investigation of Google for its collection of data from unsecured wireless networks that may have violated privacy rules.  Google’s changes to its procedures and policies address the FTC’s concerns according to a letter from the FTC to Google:  http://www.ftc.gov/os/closings/101027googleletter.pdf 

Fake Consumer Reviews

On the consumer protection front, the FTC settled charges that a public relations agency engaged in deceptive advertising â€Å“by having employees pose as ordinary consumers posting game reviews at the online iTunes store, and not disclosing that the reviews came from paid employees working on behalf of the developers. This activity was in violation of the FTC's Revised Endorsement Guidelines which require disclosure. The PR firm, Reverb Communications, is required to take down the fraudulent postings and bars them from making similar postings in the future without appropriate disclosures.

Press release: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2010/08/reverb.shtm

Links to Complaint and Consent Order: http://www.ftc.gov/os/caselist/0923199/index.shtm

Information on the FTC's Revised Endorsement Guidelines (16 CFR Part 255): http://ftc.gov/multimedia/video/business/endorsement-guides.shtm

Google and Privacy

A video cartoon featuring Google's chief giving away ice-cream to snoop on children aired on a giant screen in Times Square today as a privacy group continued to hound the internet giant.

Consumer Watchdog took its gripes with Google to the centre of Manhattan, where it paid to have a "Don't be evil?" animated clip shown on a "Jumbotron" screen above the masses coursing through Times Square.

Full story


Changes to Laws In Australia involving licensing software to consumers

Have a look at the Mallesons blog.

Who does this affect?

The new laws raise issues for all software licences with Australian end-customers where either:

  • the software is "of a kind ordinarily acquired for personal, domestic or household use or consumption"; or
  • the amount paid or payable for the software is $A40,000 or less.

Those end-customers are taken to be "consumers" by the ACL, even if they are multinational corporations or government entities well-equipped to negotiate to protect their interests.

Software Licensing

Is the software installed on your computer something you own -- or did you simply buy a "license" to use it? That's the issue at the heart of Vernor v. Autodesk Inc., a case argued Monday before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that represents a broad challenge to the software industry's fundamental business model.

U.S. Patent Office Guidelines for patentable subject matter

See article at this U.S. law firm website.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) published Interim Guidance on 27 July 2010, for evaluating method claims for subject-matter eligibility under § 101 of the Patent Act. This guidance follows the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Bilski v. Kappos.

How should damages be assessed for privacy and cybersecurity breaches

Listen to this podcast where I discuss how damages should be assessed in privacy and cybersecurity lawsuits. The Lawyers Weekly Show host J...