Author Archives: rtushnet

Does Gordon v. Drape really mean what it says about explicit misleadingness?

Posted on May 3, 2021 by rtushnet

Testing Gordon v. Drape with the paintings of Tom Sachs, some of which reproduce famous product labels in their entirety (or nearly so). The introduction to the coffee table book I just bought says, From Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and … Continue reading →

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Reading list: race and GIs

Posted on May 3, 2021 by rtushnet

Reading list: Mathilde Cohen, The Whiteness of French Food: Law, Race, and Eating Culture in France (forthcoming in French Politics, Culture, and Society, 2021) English Abstract: Food is fundamental to French identity. So too is the denial of structural racism … Continue reading →

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Amicus brief in rehearing petition for Warhol v. Goldsmith

Posted on April 30, 2021 by rtushnet

 With Christine Farley and Pam Samuelson: our brief addresses the effect of Google v. Oracle, which the Second Circuit has explicitly asked for more briefing about. I would expect other amicus interest, including on Goldsmith’s side, given the stakes of … Continue reading →

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Nominative fair use (maybe) and Amazon

Posted on April 28, 2021 by rtushnet

 I’ve recently seen two examples of the following phenomenon: off of Amazon, an advertiser uses images of its product with another well-known product, and they do go together, but on Amazon, the advertising is different. Anyone know if there’s an … Continue reading →

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DoorDash invites users to get their grub on

Posted on April 22, 2021 by rtushnet

Screenshot of mobile search results for “Grubhub.” Note also “Great Grubs” in the DoorDash blurb. I don’t think it’s unlawful, but it’s kind of tacky: from Blogger https://ift.tt/3sIZJCM

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2020-2021 Georgetown Law Technology Review Student Writing Competition

Posted on April 19, 2021 by rtushnet

 From the site: 2020-2021 TOPIC Students are invited to submit papers addressing a legal or public policy question relating to emerging and sustained challenges to legal and political structures created by online platforms, digital services, and other emerging technologies.  Example … Continue reading →

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The 4th Circuit makes trademark use more contextual

Posted on April 16, 2021 by rtushnet

Combe Inc. v. Dr. August Wolff Gmbh & Co. Kg Arzneimittel, No. 19-1674 (4th Cir. Apr. 13, 2021) Not only is this case a good demonstration that courts are willing to give broad rights to marks based on similarities in … Continue reading →

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ICANN working group report on TM rights protection mechanisms in all gTLDs now open for comment

Posted on April 14, 2021 by rtushnet

Link to report and comment mechanisms. The Working Group did not recommend expanding trademark claimants’ preemptive/pre-registration notice rights to include broad matching or algorithmically generated close variants (misses a match by one letter, for example), but I expect that’s still … Continue reading →

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Michael Jordan’s ROP claims against ads in the SI special issue on him

Posted on April 14, 2021 by rtushnet

 I just heard this discussed on a GALA (Global Advertising Lawyers Alliance, recommended for international updates) event, and fortuitously I’d decided to get my hands on a copy of the actual special issue. One thing I hadn’t realized from the … Continue reading →

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Substantiation issues?

Posted on April 14, 2021 by rtushnet

 This poster in a local dry cleaner’s, produced by a larger association, gave me pause: I believe that dry cleaning likely destroys most viruses present … but how many viruses are likely to be present? Does the claim of “effective, … Continue reading →

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