Speedo Shuts Down Blogger and Gets Domain Name
A NSW man has been ordered to shut down several pornographic websites featuring Speedo swimwear and using the company's trademark. Speedo Holdings took Central Coast blogger Dave Evans to court claiming he had used the trademark under aliases and without the company's consent. The company claimed the websites and the use of the company's trademark as part of his domain names could damage the "valuable reputation and goodwill associated with the name and trade mark Speedo". In the Federal Court of Australia on Thursday, Justice Geoffrey Flick ordered Evans to stop operating and registering any domain name containing the name Speedo. He was also restrained from operating websites featuring any sign of the Speedo trademark. Evans, who didn't appear in court, was ordered to transfer the domain names to Speedo within 21 days.
Amazon Running Sweatshop
Amazon's online store has great prices and service, and is efficient for consumers. But someone has to pick and pack the goods ordered online. Amazon has a number of distribution centres to do this. And according to U.S. newspaper reports, Amazon is running these distribution centres as sweatshops. This is the downside of cheap prices and Internet stores.
See for example: Inside Amazon's Warehouse.
Just Google "Amazon Sweatshop Pennsylvania" and you will find numerous articles about this situation.
Free books from Amazon
"Free books, including New York Times bestsellers, for the Kindle. If you’re an Amazon Prime member.
Free shipping, free movies, free books, for $80 a year. What, exactly, is Amazon up to?
There has to be some master plan, because Amazon is spending itself silly to pull this off. Because the offer is limited to owners of Kindles — it doesn’t work if you use the Kindle service on an iPad, for instance — it is intended to sell more Kindles."
Google Changes Search Algorithm to Make Results More Timely
"Acknowledging that some searches were giving people stale results,
The new algorithm is a recognition that Google, whose dominance depends on providing the most useful results, is being increasingly challenged by services like
It is also a reflection of how people use the Web as a real-time news feed — that if, for example, you search for a baseball score, you probably want to find the score of a game being played at the moment, not last week, which is what Google often gave you."
Full story in NY Times.
Hyperlinking to articles not publication for defamation
An interesting case concerning defamation on the Internet: see the Supreme Court of Canada decision, Crookes v Newton, 2011 SCC 47.
The defendant operated a website offering commentary on various issues. An comment included hyperlinks to two other pages, both of which contained articles that the defendant conceded were defamatory.
One hyperlink was "shallow," in that it referred to a web page on which the defamatory article was one of several articles posted there.
Another was "deep," in that clicking on the link led a viewer directly to the article.
For different reasons, all judges decided that this hyperlinking was not a "publication" for Canadian defamation law.
Inteflora case - bidding on trademarks as Google keywords
The Court of Justice of the European Union ("CJEU") has delivered its ruling in the long-running Interflora v Marks & Spencer Adwords case. The CJEU decided that trade mark owners can prohibit the purchase of their trade marks as keywords on web search engines, but cannot do so if the advertisements triggered do not allow users to ascertain the origin of the goods or services referred to in such advertisements.
See Bloomberg and Search Engine Watch
Australian Google AdWords Decision - Google Wins
After an 17 month wait, Justice John Nicholas of the Federal Court of Australia decided today that the ACCC did not make out their claims against Google in the case involving sponsored links and Adwords.
The key findings were that:
The court's reasons for decision are published at http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/FCA/2011/1086.html
The key findings were that:
- ordinary and reasonable members of the relevant class of consumers are likely to understand that sponsored links are advertisements; and
- Google merely communicated the representations made by advertisers, without adopting or endorsing any of those representations
The court's reasons for decision are published at http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/FCA/2011/1086.html
Patent Case - non-patentable subject matter
Cybersource v Retail Decisions was decided on 16 August 2011. It decided that a certain Internet process was not patentable subject matter.
CyberSource is the owner by assignment of a patent, which recites a “method and system for detecting fraud in a credit card transaction between [a] consumer and a merchant over the Internet.” Claim 3 of the patent recites a process for verifying the validity of credit card transactions over the Internet.
"We are not persuaded by the appellant’s argument that the claimed method is tied to a particular machine because it “would not be necessary or possible without the Internet.” Appellant’s Br. 42. Regardless of whether “the Internet” can be viewed as a machine, it is clear that the Internet cannot perform the fraud detection steps of the claimed method. Moreover, while claim 3 describes a method of analyzing data regarding Internet credit card transactions, nothing in claim 3 requires an infringer to use the Internet to obtain that data (as opposed to obtain- ing the data from a pre-compiled database). The Internet is merely described as the source of the data. We have held that mere “[data-gathering] step[s] cannot make an otherwise nonstatutory claim statutory.”
CyberSource is the owner by assignment of a patent, which recites a “method and system for detecting fraud in a credit card transaction between [a] consumer and a merchant over the Internet.” Claim 3 of the patent recites a process for verifying the validity of credit card transactions over the Internet.
"We are not persuaded by the appellant’s argument that the claimed method is tied to a particular machine because it “would not be necessary or possible without the Internet.” Appellant’s Br. 42. Regardless of whether “the Internet” can be viewed as a machine, it is clear that the Internet cannot perform the fraud detection steps of the claimed method. Moreover, while claim 3 describes a method of analyzing data regarding Internet credit card transactions, nothing in claim 3 requires an infringer to use the Internet to obtain that data (as opposed to obtain- ing the data from a pre-compiled database). The Internet is merely described as the source of the data. We have held that mere “[data-gathering] step[s] cannot make an otherwise nonstatutory claim statutory.”
My Blog is Paying My Bills
Further to the class last night, have a look at:
My Blog is Paying My Bills in the NY Times.
Don't forget to click on the Google Ads here ---->
Last Class!
Next Monday is the last class for this semester.
The reading for this class is the following:
Google - Oracle patent lawsuit and here
Free Speech on Twitter
From the NYTimes:
SAN FRANCISCO — What began as seamy gossip about an affair between a famous British soccer player and a reality TV star has quickly become another test over how far the rights to privacy and free speech extend online, where social media operate in countries with vastly different laws.
The soccer player has been granted a so-called super-injunction, a stringent and controversial British legal measure that prevents media outlets from identifying him, reporting on the story or even from revealing the existence of the court order itself.
But tens of thousands of Internet users have flouted the injunction by revealing his name on Twitter, Facebook and online soccer forums, sites that blur the definition of the press and are virtually impossible to police.
Last week, amid growing outrage in Britain over the use of super-injunctions, the athlete obtained a court order in British High Court demanding that Twitter reveal the identities of the anonymous users who had posted the messages. A Twitter spokesman, Matt Graves, said the company could not comment on the court order or how it planned to respond.
Eric Goldman, director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University, said, “It’s really going to the core of Twitter’s service and trying to balance the speech of its users and the fact that countries have different laws and norms about speech.”
Online contracting, creation of websites
e-commerce
What impact does the Electronic Transactions Act have on e-commerce / online contracting?
In this area you should also look at:
the Queensland legislation
UNCITRAL Model
UN Convention
Standard forms of agreement
Website terms of use - look at a few examples including Great South East; Microsoft. What are the common clauses? Anything strange? What impact does Unfair Contracts legislation have on these contracts?
Click wrap v Shrink wrap - what are the differences?
Case summaries
Setting up a website
What should you be aware of (having regarding to previous lectures)?
What impact does the Electronic Transactions Act have on e-commerce / online contracting?
In this area you should also look at:
the Queensland legislation
UNCITRAL Model
UN Convention
Standard forms of agreement
Website terms of use - look at a few examples including Great South East; Microsoft. What are the common clauses? Anything strange? What impact does Unfair Contracts legislation have on these contracts?
Click wrap v Shrink wrap - what are the differences?
Case summaries
Setting up a website
What should you be aware of (having regarding to previous lectures)?
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