Drew 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Perfect 10 Sues Again: This Time It Goes After Usenet Provider Giganews

    Drew ( profile ), 03 May, 2011 @ 04:36pm

    Re:

    Maybe there's a Government Benefit that helps with company's filing frivolous law suits....

  • On the post: Unsealed Righthaven Agreement Has Other Judges Questioning Legitimacy Of Righthaven's Lawsuits

    Drew ( profile ), 02 May, 2011 @ 11:34am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    It would be true if Righthaven was a law firm representing Stephens Media, however that is not the case here. In law you have to sue on how you were damaged, not how the past owner was damaged.

    Lets use your specious Home argument from earlier. If someone owns a house and the neighbor chops down the tree in the front yard, then the owner sells the house to me (without any limiting provisions to make it simple) I do not have any right to sue the neighbor over the cut down tree because it did not happen to me.

  • On the post: Unsealed Righthaven Agreement Has Other Judges Questioning Legitimacy Of Righthaven's Lawsuits

    Drew ( profile ), 02 May, 2011 @ 11:25am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Are you sure that Righthaven was actually transferred ownership of the copyright, because from the contract I read they did not. Perhaps you can cite in the contract where they were given the entire copyright?

  • On the post: Unsealed Righthaven Agreement Has Other Judges Questioning Legitimacy Of Righthaven's Lawsuits

    Drew ( profile ), 02 May, 2011 @ 10:41am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Please explain how the right of use, without ownership, grants anyone the right to sue? Please include examples of case law since that seems your requirement for everyone else.

    No, we are truly talking about the right to sue not of use. This is the only right that Righthaven was granted, not to use the item in question to make money.

  • On the post: Unsealed Righthaven Agreement Has Other Judges Questioning Legitimacy Of Righthaven's Lawsuits

    Drew ( profile ), 02 May, 2011 @ 10:23am

    Re: Re: Re:

    Well these lawsuitesn could at least get some case law to force people to understand that:

    http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/504.html

    Covers the actual owner that has been harmed by the "infringement".

  • On the post: Unsealed Righthaven Agreement Has Other Judges Questioning Legitimacy Of Righthaven's Lawsuits

    Drew ( profile ), 02 May, 2011 @ 10:16am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    No you could not, if you transfer ownership of your house to another person..they literally own it and you do not have the rights to use/etc.

    You seem to be confused with the concept of possession or occupancy of a property with ownership, just because I lease my house does not mean I own the house or can make any changes to it. Further I can not sue someone over property rights, such as a neighbor attempting to build a fence 6 inches closer to the house I am leasing, because that right rests with the owner.

  • On the post: Kraft Threatens Cooking Teacher With Trademark Claim For Teaching Students To Cook Beyond Kraft Mac & Cheese

    Drew ( profile ), 27 Apr, 2011 @ 01:00am

    Re:

    A good question I have here is that Mr. Clapson is not selling 'Macaroni and chesse' or 'Past and pasta sauces' but cooking techniques. So even if he included how to cook pasta in his free classes how would that violate the KD trademark?

  • On the post: Kraft Threatens Cooking Teacher With Trademark Claim For Teaching Students To Cook Beyond Kraft Mac & Cheese

    Drew ( profile ), 25 Apr, 2011 @ 04:39pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: AC who is confused...Trademark not Health Care

    "Use in commerce for purposes of US trademark law is typically a publication of some form in which a mark appears."

    I don't recall seeing that definition in the US trademark law, please correct me if I missed something in 15 USC Sec. 1127:

    "The term ?use in commerce? means the bona fide use of a mark in the ordinary course of trade, and not made merely to reserve a right in a mark. For purposes of this chapter, a mark shall be deemed to be in use in commerce?
    (1) on goods when?
    (A) it is placed in any manner on the goods or their containers or the displays associated therewith or on the tags or labels affixed thereto, or if the nature of the goods makes such placement impracticable, then on documents associated with the goods or their sale, and
    (B) the goods are sold or transported in commerce, and
    (2) on services when it is used or displayed in the sale or advertising of services and the services are rendered in commerce, or the services are rendered in more than one State or in the United States and a foreign country and the person rendering the services is engaged in commerce in connection with the services."

    Now a case could be made that a free course could be a 'use in commerce' if the free course was part of an advertising campaign to bring in business for other paid courses. It seems pretty clear to me here that Mr. Clapson was offering these free cooking classes solely to aid college students eating habits and not as any part in a Machiavellian scheme to bring in more business to his cooking blog and in my opinion a court would have agreed. Looking into the Canadian Trade-marks Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. T-13) it seems like this still wouldn't be a violation as there is no likelihood of confusion that this cooking class was offered by Kraft.

  • On the post: Kraft Threatens Cooking Teacher With Trademark Claim For Teaching Students To Cook Beyond Kraft Mac & Cheese

    Drew ( profile ), 25 Apr, 2011 @ 03:44pm

    Re: Re: Re: AC who is confused...Trademark not Health Care

    Although true that the term commerce includes many things lets maybe try and stay on topic, which is 'trademark law' not Health care or downloading. In regards to 'trademark law', at least in the U.S., a particular use must be in commerce to be a violation of the mark. Thanks for trying to defend your attempted change of topic though.

  • On the post: Kraft Threatens Cooking Teacher With Trademark Claim For Teaching Students To Cook Beyond Kraft Mac & Cheese

    Drew ( profile ), 25 Apr, 2011 @ 09:36am

    Re: AC who is confused...Trademark not Health Care

    Wow, the AC strikes again trying to change the subject to health care of all things. This is about trademark, get a grip.

  • On the post: Why Isn't There A Central Database Of E-Voting Problems?

    Drew ( profile ), 17 Sep, 2010 @ 10:33am

    Re: Re: Why are voting machines still treated as free enterprise?

    That's a good question, probably....the ballots have a 'complete the arrow' style.

  • On the post: Why Isn't There A Central Database Of E-Voting Problems?

    Drew ( profile ), 16 Sep, 2010 @ 10:29pm

    Why are voting machines still treated as free enterprise?

    Although I am all for free enterprise, better business models, etc. When did the method we use to vote require the honesty of people in business to make money? Ultimately these voting machines are nothing more than specialized computers that serve a specific purpose, and yet they are sold and acquired more like the latest all-in-one kiosk for the local mall. In this instance the problem is with the government; there should be contract bids and independent standards testing with a specific predetermined pattern of voting style.

    I guess I have a kind of weird look at this though since I live in Oregon where every election is vote by mail, so every election I know exactly how my ballot is going to look and how to use it to vote because it is exactly the same look and style as the previous elections. Can one say the same for electronic elections?

  • On the post: eBay Sued For Patent Infringement… With Added Conspiracy Theory

    Drew ( profile ), 14 Jul, 2010 @ 11:59am

    Re: issued a rather one-sided press release

    Ummm, dude TD is not a news organization it's a blog where Mike gets to comment on things he wants to there's nothing "factual and unbiased" expected. Beyond that he mentioned this briefly and apparently you got distracted, do less drugs.

  • On the post: The Myth That Without Gov't Monopolies Or Subsidies, Discoveries Will Be Hidden By Secrets

    Drew ( profile ), 03 Jul, 2010 @ 08:59am

    Re: Bah. Publishing is at best for incrementalists.

    Just in computers alone there is a massive change in the past 10 years, each step may be "incremental" but when the phone in my pocket is more powerful than the desktop computer I had in the 90s is pretty impressive.

    Aside from that science is a building upon work done previously, the theory of relativity was based on previous work and current working theories for space time are built upon this theory and others.

    Let alone 100 years ago it was a known fact that the smallest particles were what made up atoms (protons, electrons, neutrons), now we know of particles which make up these particles and have numerous theories about even more particles. For instance the graviton particle is still only a hypothetical or theorized particle, and yet there is significant work to try and actually "see" this particle (as well as many others). Why would this be groundbreaking you ask? Because to observe this particle would be to truly see and understand it's function which could lead to manipulating this particle, but until we can observe and understand this we are stumbling around in the dark hoping that what we believe is actually true.

    Anyway I'm sure that what I just said went in one ear and out the other, but hey high-level specialized science isn't easy to understand with out at least several years of research.

  • On the post: Pork Board Admits It Knows Unicorns Don't Exist, But Claims It Doesn't Matter

    Drew ( profile ), 28 Jun, 2010 @ 07:28pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    So the closest you could say in this instance is that the april's fools joke brought ad revenue to the site? Since the product in question does not exist in any real sense this would be a very flimsy argument.

  • On the post: Pork Board Admits It Knows Unicorns Don't Exist, But Claims It Doesn't Matter

    Drew ( profile ), 28 Jun, 2010 @ 07:26pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Shockingly enough your link there points to a 'reverse confusion' argument, wherein you are correct in that the more similar marks that could easily be confused with the owners mark leads to a weakening of the mark. In this case few of the 10 factors laid out in the decision are met:

    "(1) the degree of similarity between the owner’s mark and the alleged infringing mark"
    the pairing and order of the words in the two phrases 'the other white meat' and 'the new white meat' are fairly similar; which could lead to confusion.

    "(2) the strength of the two marks, weighing both a commercially strong junior user’s mark and a conceptually strong senior user’s mark in the senior user’s favor"
    First the PB's mark is very strong, however the other is for a non-existent product and would have a very very weak mark.

    "(3) the price of the goods and other factors indicative of the care and attention expected of consumers when making a purchase"
    As 'Unicorn Meat' does not exist and does not have any true price point or place of purchase this point is moot.

    "(4) the length of time the defendant has used the mark without evidence of actual confusion arising"
    Since 'the new white meat' has been introduced and is for a product that does not exist there has been no actual confusion.

    "(5) the intent of the defendant in adopting the mark"
    The intent here is for satire and to cause a laugh, not to make a profit on a non-existent product.

    "(6) the evidence of actual confusion"
    No evidence of actual confusion exists here.

    "(7) whether the goods, competing or not competing, are marketed through the same channels of trade and advertised through the same media"
    The defendant's goods do not exist and not actively marketed.

    "(8) the extent to which the targets of the parties’ sales efforts are the same"
    A non-existent product does not have any true sales efforts.

    "(9) the relationship of the goods in the minds of consumers, whether because of the near-identity of the products, the similarity of function, or other factors"
    I'm not sure how consumers could be confused by 'pork' and 'unicorn' meat.

    "(10) other facts suggesting that the consuming public might expect the larger, more powerful company to manufacture both products, or expect the larger company to manufacture a product in the plaintiff’s market, or expect that the larger company is likely to expand into the plaintiff’s market."
    Again unicorn meat does not exist and there is no market for it.

    Therefore the FREEDOM CARD v. CHASE FREEDOM case could not be used in a supportive action as previous case law in support of the PB's action. Nice try though.

  • On the post: New Zealand Media Claiming That Huge Local Film Success Story Is Being Harmed… By 200 Downloaders?

    Drew ( profile ), 28 Jun, 2010 @ 07:04pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Forgot the '/sarcasm' on the end of my above...my bad.

    I routinely have either watched movies in the theater or on T.V. and later purchased them because I like owning them. To me, trying to wade through all the crap illegal content out there to find a decent copy of something isn't not a good use of my time so I tend to buy what i'm looking for instead. I look at it more in a my time equals 'x' and if trying to find stuff online or in a digital medium takes greater than 'y' i've essentially wasted my talents.

  • On the post: Pork Board Admits It Knows Unicorns Don't Exist, But Claims It Doesn't Matter

    Drew ( profile ), 25 Jun, 2010 @ 10:57am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    "The idea is that the more similar marks that are out there, the less distinctive and strong each such mark is."

    I must have missed this idea clause in the trademark law and case law I've looked, could you point out where this is?

  • On the post: Pork Board Admits It Knows Unicorns Don't Exist, But Claims It Doesn't Matter

    Drew ( profile ), 25 Jun, 2010 @ 10:49am

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    True enough, so where in 15 U.S.C. § 1114 does it state that a use not in commerce is a violation of trademark? 'http://www.bitlaw.com/source/15usc/1114.html'

  • On the post: Pork Board Admits It Knows Unicorns Don't Exist, But Claims It Doesn't Matter

    Drew ( profile ), 25 Jun, 2010 @ 10:46am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    True enough that link does cover copyright and not trademark...so where in trademark law or case law does it state that holders must "jealously protect their mark"?

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