Jones Day Afraid Of Letting Judge See Public Citizen, EFF Briefs In Its Bogus Trademark Lawsuit

Legal Issues

from the fascinating-legal-reasoning dept

Remember last week when the huge law firm Jones Day was called out for abusing trademark law by suing a small site for reporting public information about some associates at the law firm? Jones Day was basically claiming that using their name and linking to their site, even in reporting factual information, was trademark infringement. That is, of course, ridiculous. A few public interest groups, such as Public Citizen (who first alerted us to this case) and the EFF filed an amicus brief with the court in support of the bullied website, Blockshopper.

Stunningly, Jones Day’s response is to file a brief telling the judge he shouldn’t even accept the amicus brief. Yes, they’re filing a legal brief to tell the judge that these groups should not be allowed to provide their thoughts on the case. The reasoning is the sort that only a true lawyer would appreciate. First, these groups shouldn’t be allowed to file a brief because they’re “partisan.” Of course, a large number of amici briefs are “partisan” in that they support one side or the other (there are some that are neutral). Then, it claims they should not be able to file the amicus brief because it doesn’t add anything beyond what the defendant has already filed. And then, in the same sentence where Jones Day complains that the amicus brief doesn’t add anything new, it also says the brief shouldn’t be allowed because it adds a new argument that the defendant, Blockshopper, didn’t think was worth raising.

Yes, you read that correctly. Jones Day is claiming that no amici briefs should be allowed if it favors one party of the other (partisan!). Also, that no amici briefs should be allowed if they don’t raise any new issues… and at the same time that raising new issues is a reason not to allow the amici briefs. Is it any wonder that this law firm believes that mentioning its name is a trademark violation? All of this leads you to wonder, what is Jones Day so afraid of in the amicus brief that it wants to prevent the judge from viewing it?

Filed Under: amicus brief, trademark
Companies: eff, jones day, public citizen

Various Rights Group Fight Back Against The Wikileaks Injunction

Legal Issues

from the standing-up-for-freedom-of-speech dept

Last week, the decision by a California court to have a registrar attempt to force Wikileaks offline got plenty of attention — not the least of which was because the injunction had no impact on the site’s IP address: 88.80.13.160. Yet, much more troubling were the implications concerning why a judge in California would try to take down an entire site because of complaints from a Swiss bank about just a few documents on the site concerning a lawsuit in Switzerland. Now it appears that plenty of organizations who fight for various civil rights have shown up to file briefs against this questionable ruling.

Paul Alan Levy, of the group, Public Citizen, writes in to let us know: “We at Public Citizen are concerned with the First Amendment and the issue of prior restraint, but in attacking the orders we decided to focus on some more technical issues that neither the lawyers in the case nor, apparently, the judge had noticed. Thus, earlier today, along with the California First Amendment Coalition, we filed a brief pointing out that the case did not even qualify for federal court jurisdiction because there are subjects of foreign states on both sides of the case — the Swiss bank on one side, and Wikileaks, many of whose members are abroad, on the other side. In addition, we point out that the main cause of action on which the bank relied, section 17200 of the California Business and Professions Code, applies only to unfair or unlawful “business practices” and hence does not apply to completely non-commercial web sites like Wikileaks. Our brief is discussed on the Citizen Vox blog, and in this press release.

A brief attacking the injunction on First Amendment grounds was also filed today by a coalition of media organizations. Finally, the ACLU of Northern California and EFF have also filed a brief arguing against the decision on First Amendment grounds.”

Filed Under: aclu, eff, first amendment, free speech, public citizen, wikileaks
Companies: aclu, eff, public citizen

Infomercial Companies Never Learn: Another One Suing Site For Negative Reviews

Legal Issues

from the or-you-could-just-improve-your-product dept

Greg Beck, from Public Citizen, has written us in the past a few times about bogus trademark lawsuits being brought against online review sites, such as InfomercialScams.com. Back in May there was a case where a company advertising its wares via infomercials sued the site for trademark infringement. Clearly, it was not the trademark use that was the problem (especially since it’s difficult to see how that’s trademark infringement). It was merely a way to try to get negative reviews (written by third party users of the site) taken offline. A similar case came up this fall when the infamous Video Professor sued 100 anonymous critics on the site, demanding that the owner of InfomercialScams.com turn over their IP addresses.

Beck is now back alerting us to the fact that the Video Professor has withdrawn his subpoena for info from the site, but is still forging ahead with the lawsuit (and is seeking the identity of a user on Wikipedia). However, he also notes that yet another company that advertises via infomercials is now suing InfomercialScams, claiming trademark infringement. Once again, this is clearly not trademark infringement, but an attempt by the company to bully an independent site into taking negative reviews offline. Just imagine if any of these companies put half as much effort into improving their products and services instead of calling the lawyers whenever anyone has anything critical to say about these firms.

Filed Under: infomercials, reviews, slapp
Companies: infomercialscams, lifestyle lift, public citizen