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Beijing company known for fakes applies for trademark, warns counterfeiters

Trademark Infringement & Cyber-squatting Update:

A Beijing clothing market famous for selling fakes has started its own line of brand-name products, filed for trademark protection and has warned trademark counterfeiters that it intends to enforce it's trade mark.

US-Based Company Privacy Policies May Not Comply With EU Privacy Laws

Many United States Companies with high-traffic web sites do considerable business in the European Union. Few US companies understand and appreciate that privacy laws are much stricter in the EU than the US. Privacy Policies need to cover both US privacy laws, as well as EU privacy laws. 

Microsoft Awarded Damages, Attorney Fees & Injunction Precluding Further Counterfeiting

Copyright infringement and trademark infringement on the internet is rampant. But infringement comes with risk.  Defendant Silver Start learned the hard way that infringing Microsoft's intellectual property can result in substantial damage awards. Our internet attorneys examine this important case.

Seattle Trademark Blog - Published by Michael Atkins- Microsoft Wins Most of Georgia Counterfeiting Case

In 2006, Microsoft Corp. brought suit in the Northern District of Georgia against Silver Star Micro, Inc., and its principal, Chase Campbell, for trademark and copyright infringement. On Jan. 6, Judge William Duffey, Jr., granted in large part Microsoft’s motion for summary judgment and imposed a permanent injunction against the defendants.

No Word On Sunrise Registration For Trademark Holders For .Me Domain Extensions

New ccTLD (Country Code Top Level Domains) for .me:  Domain registrar and Web hosting provider Go Daddy (godaddy.com) announced on Friday that it has been selected by the government of Montenegro as one of the three members in a joint venture that will be operating the new domain extension, .me. Go Daddy says interested customers will be able to register for the new domain extension for personal or business use later this year.  This continues the trend of small countries finding ways to monetize country code domain extensions. Instead of using the 2 digit extension .me to indicate country of origin, anyone can use the extension for any lawful (an perhaps unlawful) purpose.  Two digit domain extensions for countries are provided for under ISO 3166 is the International Standard for country codes and contemplated by RFC 1591, Domain Name System Structure and Delegation, March 1994.

Email Squatting The New Typosquatting?

A new cyber crime was recently brought to the attention of our internet law lawyers. Everyone knows that cybersquatting is a rampant problem in the world wide web. What happens if cybersquatting and trademark infringement spreads to other areas of the internet? What we are referring to is a new internet crime known as “email squatting.”

For more information on typo-squatting trademarks, click the link. For more information on email squatting, read below.

Google Adwords Campaigns Can Support Trademark Infringement Litigation

Our internet lawyers are often asked about whether a competitors use of their trademarks in Google adwords campaigns can result in legal liability.  The answer is that, in some circumstances, use of a competitors trademarks in Google adword advertising is unlawful.  While this is a very young area of law with few reported decisions, the Australian Gold v. Hatfield, 436 F.3d 1228 (10th Cir. 2006) case makes it clear that legal counsel should be consulted before starting any adwords campaign using some else's trademarks and threat letters are appropriate by trademark owners. Eric Goldman over at the Eric Goldman blog has some fun with 1-800 Contacts Google Adwords litigation filed last week. 

For more information on Google Adwords Trademark Infringement, check out these links or keep reading this article below.

• Adwords Trademark Infringement Continues to be a Grow Into A Global Problem For Brand Owners.
• What is Google's AdWords and AdSense trademark policy? Google's policy is different in different countries. However, Google leaves it up to trademark owners and advertisers to sort out there differences in most cases. 

Sears Alleged To Have Disclosed Data In Violation of We Site Privacy Policy

Sears sued over privacy breach | InfoWorld | News | 2008-01-08 | By Robert McMillan, IDG News Service

The lawsuit seeks damages as well as an accounting by Sears to determine whether the Web site was misused by criminals. It was filed on Friday by New Jersey resident Christine Desantis, who is represented by KamberEdelson, a technology law firm. KamberEdelson is best known for its recent settlement with social networking site Facebook over its sending of unwanted text messages to recycled cell-phone numbers.

Cybersquatting UDRP Cases Continue to Rise

The number of complaints filed by real or alleged trademark owners against alleged cybersquatters under the “Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy” (UDRP) hit an all-time high in 2007, according to this data from the World Intellectual Property Organization, riding from1857 to 2156 in the last seven years.

Technorati Tags: icann, udrp, cybersquatting

Data Discrimination Allegations Against Comcast

Data is big business on the internet.  How web sites, ISP's and web hosts use your data is of great concern to all sides.  End-user privacy agreements and privacy policies typically control how much information you can use from web visitors, and how you can use cookies to track visitor activity.   In fact, Congress continues to look at ways to force internet vendors to protect privacy more rigorously than ever before. The FTC recently asked vendors to implement a "do-not-track" mechanism and limit the use of cookies.

For more information about data privacy, end-user privacy agreements, the use of cookies to track user data and other internet law issues, contact one of our Internet attorneys today. We can help you reduce risk on data privacy issues. Call 877-669-5580 for a no risk consultation.

ValueClick Moves Closer to End Of Consumer Protection Probe

ValueClick sees FTC probe resolved soon | Technology | Internet | Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Online marketing company ValueClick Inc said on Wednesday it was optimistic it would soon settle a Federal Trade Commission investigation into some of its Web sites, possibly in the first quarter.

In May, ValueClick said the FTC was looking into a few of its Web sites that promise consumers free gifts, as well as the way in which it drives traffic to such sites.