Category: Internet Law

On September 3, 2015, in a rather unprecedented decision, a majority of the Washington Supreme Court held that Backpage.com, an online service provider, might not be guaranteed the protections provided for under the Communications Decency Act (“CDA”). JS v Village Voice Media Holdings involved minors that were featured in advertisements for sexual services on Backpage.com. The […]

Mr. Maximillian Schrems is an Austrian national, living in Austria and has used Facebook since 2008.[1] On June 25, 2013, Mr. Schrems brought a complaint to the Data Protection Commissioner (the “Commissioner”) asking that the Commissioner use their statutory powers to prohibit Facebook Ireland from transferring personal data to Facebook Inc., which sits within the […]

Last week, a California Appellate Court ruled that criminal charges of threatening violence against a crime victim could be brought against an amateur rapper who posted a video on Facebook rapping about killing the rape victims of his incarcerated crewmember. While the appellate ruling was procedural in nature,[1] the decision allows state prosecutors to try […]

A trademark is a mechanism for identifying the source of a good or service and a technique for providing marketing advantages for the owner of the trademark. See Trade Dress Protection. According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (hereinafter USPTO), it is “any word, name, symbol, or device, or any combination thereof, other […]

  You may be wondering who owns the copyright of original works of authorship when they are developed during the scope of employment. The key issue in a circumstance such as this is whether the work was done as an independent contractor or as a work made for hire. Recently, this issue is being addressed […]

If you’ve been through the first, second, and third elements of a UDRP complaint, and you have argued laches as a defense, but have now lost your domain name to a complainant, here is what you can do. A UDRP panel is not always the final decision. You may choose to take your case before […]

Before 2013, a UDRP case had never been decided solely on laches. That is, until Laminex, Inc. v. Yan Smith, a case involving a domain dispute over theidshop.com, in which panel did not even consider the case on the merits. What is Laches?   Laches is a concept from the law of equity. The laches […]

UDRP Element 3: Bad Faith In case you missed it, we provided a general overview of the UDRP process here, and a more in-depth look at the first and second element of the UDRP. This post, however, delves deeper into the third element of the UDRP test, whether the domain was registered in bad faith. […]

UDRP Element 2: Legitimate Rights Now that you have the first element of the UDRP analysis down, let’s talk more in depth about the second element and what a complainant will need to prove in a domain dispute. What is the process for establishing legitimate rights in a domain name? While the complainant has the […]

Last Friday, Google published a blog post outlining a new policy to directly combat one of the web’s darkest corners: revenge porn. Revenge porn—and its even more sinister counterpart, “sexploitation”—have affected a large swath of people, mainly women. Revenge porn is the term used to describe the act of posting scandalous, sexually explicit pictures or […]