Slashdot Mirror
Chicago Law Firm Sues Over Hyperlink To Trademarked Name
TheSpoom writes "Large Chicago law firm Jones Day are suing internet startup BlockShopper over the issue of whether linking to a business with their trademarked name should be legal. It would seem they are using trademark dilution as a tool to get BlockShopper to cease linking to their website. The EFF has filed an amicus curiae, as might be expected. If Jones Day wins this suit, anyone linking using a trademarked name may be in legal hot water."
Next in news: all trademarked names sink on Google.
Jones Day(TM) is going to have to get in line. SCO has existing use claims on linking litigious bastards, based on their extensive use of the mark between 2002 through present.
It's too bad the legal system isn't more accessible to the common man or baseless suits with intent to crush or scare wouldn't get filed so often.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Man, cant the lawyers fight something that is more useful, like crooked Wall Street firms? What a waste of the court's resources.
You don't want us to drive traffic to your site? Fine by me.
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
So, let's get this straight. You'd like people to be attracted to your business, but you don't want them to use your Name....
Kind of defeats the point in having a website, really.
"She's furniture with a pulse"
Let 'em know what you think:
http://www.jonesday.com/contact/contact.aspx
--
How would Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo! feel about this?
Better yet,
contact the guy in charge:
Daniel E. Reidy
Tel: 1.312.269.4140
Fax: 1.312.782.8585
Email: dereidy@jonesday.com
In reviewing the site, I can see how it pisses people off. You get someone mad and they'll find some way to attack. The site canvasses the real estate market in a few large cities and makes not of prominent people that buy or sell property. It then does a mini-bio on the person, sometimes with their picture example. The site is fully within their rights to do so, but I can understand the feelings of a person suddenly showing up on there with their life story just because they bought a house. So, they find loop holes to get it taken down.
Jones Day was founded in Cleveland and has its largest office there. Moreover, the problem is people linking non-Jones-Day-related stuff to "Jones Day." Pretend I linked your name to "Asshole."
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
It also includes their trademarked name. How dare it!
I piss off bigots.
Pfft! And they try to gain cred by claiming to be "Pro Bono". I bet they've never even MET Bono. :-)
They're actually pro-SONNY Bono, considering their apparent view on copyrights and trademarks.
Large Chicago law firm Jones Day are suing internet startup BlockShopper over the issue of whether linking to a business with their trademarked name should be legal.
Yes, it should be.
"RPGs? Try White Wolf or Wizards of the Coast."
Trademarks exist to differentiate businesses. You have an ABSOLUTE RIGHT to use somebody else's trademark to refer to them or describe their product. Any law that says otherwise is fundamentally flawed, and violates the first amendment.
A trademark is a name, and names are fundamental to speech.
We see a lot of nonsense of this kind, so this particular case is not in any way remarkable.
However, every time that such a case pops up, I find myself asking the same question: why are the lawyers who actually submit these suits on behalf of their companies such utter idiots that they allow it to happen, let alone instigate it?
"Because their CEO tells them to" is no answer, because lawyers are hired to give legal advice, not to say "Yes" --- in fact they have to give good advice as a professional responsibility. So why are they not saying "No John, we can't really do that, and not just because of the PR repercussions, but because of what it would entail if everyone did this on the net." And then explain how such things would simply destroy the Internet if successful.
Why is this not happening? Instead, the lawyer profession US-wide (and a bit beyond US boundaries too) is acting like IQ 20 submorons with extra helpings of stupidity and a total lack of social conscience and zero professional pride.
What's going on? I just can't understand this at all.
Lots of companies seem to think that trademark is a blanket rule to prevent others from talking about you (consider that the NFL thinks you can't mention team names without their permission!). It doesn't help that there's the occasional idiot judge who upholds that kind of thing.
uh no.
1. Their stocks wouldn't plummet to 0.
2. Those 3 companies (esp MS) have more lawyers than this law firm and a much bigger bankroll to appeal this to the end of time.
MS has fended off the government by themselves. With Google and Yahoo! backing them, they can wipe this law firm off the map.
"There is no real right or wrong, just what the majority accepts at the time."
Right, but it is one thing to say "This is a critcism of X®" where X® links to the company's website, and quite another to say "This article is a review of various manufactures of foos, such as A®, B®, C® and have B® link to a scathing disparagement without evidence to back it up, insted of B®'s website -- particularly if A® and C® link correctly.
You can certainly criticize B®, but what you can not do is use B® as identifying anything other than the owner or product associated with the trademark.
What if all the trademarks were links to reviews and not to their holder's websites -- that is not single out B® for harsher treatment? I think this would still be infringement becuase using a trademark to refer to something about what the trademark represents and not what it represents directly, is infringement.
That might be a tough concept for tech-heads: after all the name is just a moniker for whatever metadata it is associated with in the present context, whether it be a corporate website, picture of a prodect, or a criticism of same. But that's a rational technical argument and not a legal one.
I suppose, in the context of a web page, a non-infringing use of a trademark would be a link to an image of the product, or the website of the trademark holder, in the same way that a non-infringing use of a trademarked company name would be to associate it with an address and telephone number in a directory.
Similarly, in a Consumer Reports-style (and I probably infringed on Consumer Reports trademark there -- using it as an adjective) review of various manufacturers, a list of trademarked names, and the locations (pages) where the holder is reviwed is fair game: the trademark refers to the holder, and the page number refers to the review.
IANAL, and am not even sure of the case law on this subject, but I think that so long as a trademark is (a) noted as such, and (b) refers to either what is trademarked or the holder, it's use is fair game. I remember when Slashdot used to use a stylized IBM® graphic to refer to articles about IBM. IBM politely requested that the stylization be dropped, IIRC, but that the use to refer to articles about them was permitted.
In Liberty, Rene
MS has fended off the government by themselves. With Google and Yahoo! backing them, they can wipe this law firm off the map.
Conveniently enough, that's exactly what they want.
Well, as I said all those regional law firms are merging with each other to become national/global law firm, or at least try to give that impression in their marketing materials.*
I am just wondering about why the illogical label of "Chicago law firm" on Jones Day. When people talk about "Chicago law firm," people think about Kirkland & Ellis, Mayer Brown, MWE, Sidley Austin, Jenner Block, etc.
*Generally speaking. Law firms with niche practice will plug their location, administrative law/regulatory focused law firm will highlight their Washington DC office. IP law firms highlight their silicon valley office. Corporate law firm used to highlight their NYC/London offices, but who knows those day.
As a move to avoid the possibility of getting caught up in a suit, I think Google, Yahoo, MSNLive, Ask and every other engine should remove any reference to this domain.
If no one can find you via search engines, and no one links to you, what good is your site? They would probably sue the engines if they de-listed that domain for some wacky antitrust mumbo jumbo, "conspiracy to not help us make a living" or somesuch.
I like music
Death of a lot more than that. They aren't actually suing over the link, if you read the linked articles. They are suing over their name being mentioned at all. The hyperlink is only even mentioned to get the /. crowd enraged. While true that it does contain a hyperlink, they are not suing for that, they are suing because they believe the article written ABOUT THEM may falsely mislead people into believing it was written BY them.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI