Cyberlaw

Copyright class

This lecture will give a brief overview of copyright law generally. For some background, see:

Berne Convention
Australian Copyright Council
Copyright Act

There have been a number of interesting Australian cases dealing with copyright infringement, see for example:

Kazaa
MP3s4free
Stevens v Sony

The iiNet case will be discussed in detail in the Liability of ISPs lecture.

We will also discuss how other countries treat piracy:

US - Digital Millenium Copyright Act, and the case of Napster
UK - Ditigal Economy Bill, and the recent case of Newzbin

Patents Class

On Monday, 10 May 2010, we will be looking at patents.

Some reading for this class:

1. History

2. State Street Bank decision

Decision

3. Bilski

4. Australia

Real Time
Grant v Commissioner of Patents [2005] FCA 1100
Comment

5. Protests

Google v. Groggle

See this article, including an audio interview.

http://www.zdnet.com.au/are-google-and-groggle-really-similar-339302819.htm

Google Keywords

"There is no stopping Google selling trademark terms as keywords. That is the message from the US courts this week. A judge from the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia has dismissed Rosetta Stone's case against the search giant, effectively killing off once and for all the conventional method of attacking the AdWords programme.

Rescuecom had already dropped its case against Google (in order to fight a suit on exactly the same issue but where it is the defendant). But the fact that a court has now dismissed this type of case is very surprising, as it shows that they cannot even get to court anymore. The message is that mark owners will be wasting their time suing Google for trademark infringement. The Court of Justice of the European Union recently said the same thing, although it left the door open for mark owners to sue those third-party advertisers that purchase competitors' trademark terms as keywords.

While the Best Buy v Rescuecom case will be tried from this particular angle, it appears that Google is off the hook. Users of the AdWords programme may sue each other, but the view of one US court at least is that there's no point suing Google. If trademark counsel want to stop the sale of their trademark terms to their competitors, they need to switch tactics. Fast."

Source: World Trademark Review

iCyte

In a previous post, I mentioned iCyte as a research tool. Here is an article in the Wall Street Journal about iCyte.

Domain name disputes and cyberquatting

Domain name disputes and cyberquatting

What are the common elements of domain name dispute resolution process?

For a good overview of the Uniform Dispute Resolution Process (UDRP), and the factors relevant to each element, see the WIPO website.

The Australian Dispute Resolution Process for domain names (managed by auDA), can be found here.

What are the differences between these two policies.

We will be discussing some of the following cases, which would be good to review before class:

brisbane.com

q1resort.com

"sucks" cases - red bull and bakersdelightlies

personal names

Who should win in this case?

We will also discuss the proposal for new top level domains.

Online Contracting

This week we will cover the two related issues of online contracting and legal issues which arise when creating a website.

Online contracting

How do you determine when an electronic communication is sent/received? What are the possibilities?

Electronic Transactions Act - Queensland / Commonwealth
Vienna Convention on the Sale of Goods (incorporated into

Australia

law)

Guidelines for operating websites

Australian Treasury Guidelines for e-commerce

Terms of use

What are the common clauses / differences between these Terms of Use?

Clickwrap / Shrinkwrap agreements

Sample

What is the difference between a clickwrap and a shrinkwrap license?

What can you do to try and make a clickwrap agreement enforceable?

How will unfair terms legislation affect these agreements?

List of cases

Enforcing Click Wrap Agreements

Tiffany v. eBay

EBay Inc did not engage in trademark infringement and dilution by selling counterfeit Tiffany & Co goods on its website, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Thursday, but it ordered further review of the jeweler's claim of false advertising.

Tiffany and other luxury brands have long argued that counterfeit merchandise bearing their names is sold on eBay. The Web commerce company, which does not itself put the goods up for sale, says it has spent millions of dollars to track down counterfeiters and remove such listings.

See Reuters and BusinessWeek

Trial Decision and Second Circuit Appeal Decision

Who can regulate the Internet?

The DC Circuit court recently vacated the FCC's order imposing sanctions on Comcast Corp. for its network management practices.  It held that the Commission failed to tie its assertion of ancillary regulatory authority over Comcast's Internet service to any "statutorily mandated responsibility."

"In this case we must decide whether the Federal Communications Commission has authority to regulate an Internet service provider’s network management practices. ..."

Here is the opinion: http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/common/opinions/201004/08-1291-1238302.pdf

How I Got Sued by Facebook

http://petewarden.typepad.com/searchbrowser/

How I got sued by Facebook

...Their contention was robots.txt had no legal force and they could sue anyone for accessing their site even if they scrupulously obeyed the instructions it contained.

http://www.itwire.com/it-policy-news/regulation/38101-pete-warden-vs-facebook-a-case-of-too-much-data-access

Pete Warden vs. Facebook: a case of too much data access

... Pete Warden had a really great idea: to map the friendship interactions of Facebook users to aid with geospatial analysis of user relationships. Facebook's lawyers had a different view.

Hot News

"Breathing some new life into the “hot news” doctrine, Judge Cote of the Southern District of New York recently issued a permanent injunction requiring the Internet-based financial news site TheFlyOnTheWall.com (Fly) to delay its reporting of stock recommendations from Wall Street research analysts. ..."

See Case Note for Barclays Capital, Inc., Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc., and Morgan Stanley & Co., Inc. v. THEFLYONTHEWALL.COM , 06 Civ. 4908 (S.D.N.Y. 2010)

Meta-tags and Google Keywords - TM infringement

A recent Queensland case concerning trademark infringement issues, relating to Internet marketing. The case considers Google AdWords keywords, meta-tags and domain names in the context of trademark infringement.

See Mantra Group v. Tailly Pty Ltd

Tailly operated businesses under names such as "Circle on Cavill Private Apartments" and "A1 Gold Coast Holidays". Tailly went into bankruptcy last Thursday.