Should Ninth Circuit Abolish the Doctrine of Initial Interest Confusion?

by Paul Alan Levy    

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about a Ninth Circuit decision, Multi Time Machine v. Amazon.com, that undid a great deal of progress made in that court undoing the adverse effects of that Court's decision in Brookfield Communications v. West Coast Video; last week, I noted that Amazon had sought rehearing en banc, urging the Ninth Circuit to restore the gains.

In an amicus brief that I filed today on behalf of both Public Citizen and EFF, we urge the Ninth Circuit to go further and overrule Brookfield altogether.  We argue that the Ninth Circuit's various rulings initial interest confusion rulings are so inconsistent with each other as to form a "hopeless hodgepodge," that the doctrine does more harm than good, and that the best course is for the Ninth Circuit to overrule the decision and start over.

0 thoughts on “Should Ninth Circuit Abolish the Doctrine of Initial Interest Confusion?

  1. Daco says:

    I don’t know WTF this article is trying to say. A little context would help. There’s several minutes of my life wasted.

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