The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has issued an important decision at the intersection of First Amendment and trademark law, marking the second time in two days that free speech has triumphed over expansive intellectual property claims. On Monday it was the Ninth Circuit’s en banc decision in Garcia v. Google, rejecting an […]
Author Archives: Paul Levy
In an opinion issued this morning, an almost unanimous en banc Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has overturned the panel opinion in Garcia v. Google, which last year granted a mandatory injunction requiring Google to remove the video “Innocence of Muslims” from YouTube on the ground that, when an actress was tricked into […]
This morning we have a broad hint that the Ninth Circuit's en banc opinion in Garcia v. Google is to be expected today, and that the ruling will reverse Judge Kozinski's opinion for the panel. What the ground of that opinion will be, who will write, and what the split among the judges will […]
Rebecca Tushnet’s blog calls attention to a bizarre cybersquatting complaint that was recently filed in the Northern District of California by ThermoLife, an Arizona company that touts its dietary supplements as providing “the purest, most powerful and innovative products” using the trademark “Muscle Beach.” The trademark claims are utter nonsense, but the proceeding raises a […]
In a brief filed in the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, we have asked the Court to enforce the Supreme Court’s rule forbidding temporary injunctions to protect the reputation of a business against allegedly defamatory criticisms. The facts of the case show the wisdom of the rule. How the Appeal Came About In the fall […]
by Paul Alan Levy Over the past couple of decades, federal courts have a uniform answer to the question whether state anti-SLAPP statutes applied when state law claims were pursued in federal court. Anti-SLAPP statutes give the defendants in cases brought over the exercise of free speech rights on matters of public interest, and certain […]
The recent announcement of an FTC settlement with a company called AmeriFreight that was paying customers to write reviews, then trolling for new customers by pointing to its favorable online ratings, brings to mind the controversy a few years ago about the FTC's amendments of its advertising guidelines to apply to misleading use of online […]
by Paul Alan Levy I have blogged several times (for example here and here) about the efforts of Hadeed Carpet Cleaning to compel Yelp to comply with a Virginia subpoena to identify seven consumers who posted critical reviews on Yelp. Our principal concern about the subpoenas was Hadeed did not claim that the gist of […]
by Paul Alan Levy In a two-page per curiam ruling, the Fifth Circuit has affirmed the decision of Judge Sam Cummings of the Northern District of Texas to dismiss, on the face of the complaint, Lanham Act claims brought by Clark Baker and his “Office of Scientific and Medical Justice” against a blogger who created […]
by Paul Alan Levy An increasing number of ISP’s have come to see themselves as more than stakeholders in controversies about whether their users have so clearly exceeded their First Amendment rights that their identities must be revealed in response to court subpoenas. Twitter, for example, declined in the Macao Music case to disclose the […]