Author Archives: Paul Levy

Thomson Safaris Using Subpoenas to Out Opponents of Its Excesses Against Masai Villagers

by Paul Alan Levy Anonymous Internet users based in Tanzania are fighting a subpoena from Wineland-Thomson Adventures, a company that runs super-luxury safaris and climbs on Mount Kilimanjaro under the name Thomson Safaris, seeking to identify the authors of a web site that takes Thomson to task over allegations of brutal attacks on Masai villagers […]

Trademark claim over fictional product’s name rejected

by Paul Alan Levy A useful ruling last week from the federal court in Northern Indiana dismissed its face a complaint brought by an obscure company that makes “Clean Slate” software, which can be used to wipe all user activity off a computer network.  The plaintiff complained that Warner Brothers' The Dark Knight Rises showed […]

Hadeed Carpet Cleaning Seeks to Suppress a Dirty Secret

by Paul Alan Levy You can’t live in the DC area and not encounter the pervasive advertising for Hadeed Carpet Cleaning, from mailed coupons and display advertising in the Washington Post that promise unbelievably low prices, to classic rock broadcast from the “Hadeed.com Studios” and advertising during Washington Capitals games. But regular users of pages […]

Med Express Apologizes for Suing a Customer, Blaming Its Lawyer

by Paul Alan Levy Richard Radey, the President of Med Express, has published a comment on my previous article about his company, apologizing for the lawsuit filed against Amy Nicholls, claiming that the wording of the lawsuit violated his express instructions to his lawyer, James Amodio, and promising that he had instructed his lawyer to […]

Attorney Fee Award Against Charles Carreon for Abusive Trademark Litigation

by Paul Alan Levy In a brief opinion issued today, Judge Richard Seeborg of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California awarded Christopher Recouvreur more than $46,000 in attorney fees and expenses for having had to defend himself against a series of wild and baseless threats of suit for trademark infringement […]

Michigan Appeals Court Protects Anonymity of Online Critic, But Should Have Done More

by Paul Alan Levy The decision posted this morning by the Michigan Court of Appeals in Thomas Cooley Law School v. Doe is a victory for the Doe defendant, who gets the reversal that he sought, but is a mixed blessing for anonymous Internet speakers in future cases. A unanimous Court of Appeals decided that […]

Judge Agrees to Vacate Prior Restraint Against Critic of McDonald’s Settlement – For Now

by Paul Alan Levy At Monday's hearing on the our motion to vacate the preliminary injunction against Majed Moughni to shut down his criticism of the proposed settlement of a lawsuit over McDonald’s sale of haram meat that had been advertised as halal, Judge Kathleen Macdonald agreed to both prongs of the relief we had […]

Wayne County Judge Continues to Defy the First Amendment

by Paul Alan Levy A status conference was held today in connection with Maged Moughni’s motion to vacate the impermissible prior restraint that Judge Kathleen McDonald issued a month ago, forbidding Moughni to discuss in public the class action lawsuit brought against McDonald’s for selling haram Chicken McNuggets that had been advertised as halal, or […]