The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), 15 U.S.C. § 1125(d),(passed as part of Pub. L.Tooltip Public Law 106–113 ) is a U.S. law enacted in 1999 that established a cause of action for registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name confusingly similar to, or dilutive of, a trademark or personal name. The law was designed to thwart "cybersquatters" who register Internet domain names containing trademarks with no intention of creating a legitimate web site, but instead plan to sell the domain name to the trademark owner or a third party. Critics of the ACPA complain about the non-global scope of the Act and its potential to restrict free speech, while others dispute these complaints. Before the ACPA was enacted, trademark owners relied heavily on the Federal Trademark Dilution Act (FTDA) to sue domain name registrants. The FTDA was enacted in 1995 in part with the intent to curb domain name abuses. The legislative history of the FTDA specifically mentions that trademark dilution in domain names was a matter of Congressional concern motivating the Act. Senator Leahy stated that "it is my hope that this anti-dilution statute can help stem the use of deceptive Internet addresses taken by those who are choosing marks that are associated with the products and reputations of others".
Minimum contacts is a term used in the United States law of civil procedure to determine when it is appropriate for a court in one state to assert personal jurisdiction over a defendant from another state. The United States Supreme Court has decided a number of cases that have established and refined the principle that it is unfair for a court to assert jurisdiction over a party unless that party's contacts with the state in which that court sits are such that the party "could reasonably expect to be haled into court" in that state. This jurisdiction must "not offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice". A non-resident defendant may have minimum contacts with the forum state if they 1) have direct contact with the state; 2) have a contract with a resident of the state; 3) have placed their product into the stream of commerce such that it reaches the forum state; 4) seek to serve residents of the forum state; 5) have satisfied the Calder effects test; or 6) have a non-passive website viewed within the forum state.
Personal jurisdiction in Internet cases refers to a growing set of judicial precedents in American courts where personal jurisdiction has been asserted upon defendants based solely on their Internet activities. Personal jurisdiction in American civil procedure law is premised on the notion that a defendant should not be subject to the decisions of a foreign or out of state court, without having "purposely availed" himself of the benefits that the forum state has to offer. Generally, the doctrine is grounded on two main principles: courts should protect defendants from the undue burden of facing litigation in an unlimited number of possibly remote jurisdictions, and courts should prevent states from infringing on the sovereignty of other states by limiting the circumstances under which defendants can be "haled" into court.
Yahoo! Inc. v. La Ligue Contre Le Racisme et l'antisemitisme, 433 F.3d 1199, was an Internet jurisdiction case of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, on whether American courts must help enforce penalties against American-operated websites that had been enacted by other nations.
Google, Inc. v. American Blind and Wallpaper Factory, Inc., No. 5:03-cv-05340, was a decision of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California that challenged the legality of Google's AdWords program. The court concluded that, pending the outcome of a jury trial, Google AdWords may be in violation of trademark law because it (1) allowed arbitrary advertisers to key their ads to American Blind's trademarks and (2) may confuse search-engine users initially interested in visiting American Blind's website into visiting its competitors' websites.
Cybersell, Inc. v. Cybersell, Inc. was a trademark infringement case based on the use of an internet service mark. The United States District Court for the District of Arizona was asked to review whether the allegedly infringing use of a service mark in a home page on the World Wide Web suffices for personal jurisdiction in the state where the holder of the mark has its principal place of business. The Cybersell holding illustrated that passive websites do not establish personal jurisdiction outside the state in which they are based.
1-800 CONTACTS v. WhenU.com was a legal dispute beginning in 2002 over pop-up advertisements. It was brought by 1-800 Contacts, an online distributor of various brands of contact lenses against WhenU SaveNow, a maker of advertising software. The suit also named Vision Direct, one of WhenU advertising customers, as a co-defendant. 1-800 CONTACTS alleged that the advertisements provided by WhenU, which advertised competitors of 1-800 CONTACTS when people viewed the company's web site, were "inherently deceptive" and that one of the advertisements "misleads users into falsely believing the pop-up advertisements supplied by WhenU.com are in actuality advertisements authorized by and originating with the underlying Web site".
Harris v. Blockbuster, Inc., 622 F. Supp. 2d 396, established precedent in the district that when a contract has a clause that authorizes one party to make changes to the "contract" without notification, that it is illusory and hence the entire "contract" is void.
Bensusan Restaurant Corp. v. King, 126 F.3d 25, is a 1997 United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit case that helped define the parameters of personal jurisdiction in the Internet context, specifically for passive websites that only advertise local services. The opinion, written by Judge Ellsworth Van Graafeiland, affirmed the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York's holding that defendant Richard B. King's Internet website did not satisfy New York's long-arm statute requirements for plaintiff Bensusan Restaurant Corporation to bring a trademark infringement suit in New York. The District Court's decision also likened creating a website to merely placing a product into the stream of commerce, and held that such an act was insufficient to satisfy due process and personal jurisdiction requirements.
Trademark infringement is a violation of the exclusive rights attached to a trademark without the authorization of the trademark owner or any licensees. Infringement may occur when one party, the "infringer", uses a trademark which is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark owned by another party, especially in relation to products or services which are identical or similar to the products or services which the registration covers. An owner of a trademark may commence civil legal proceedings against a party which infringes its registered trademark. In the United States, the Trademark Counterfeiting Act of 1984 criminalized the intentional trade in counterfeit goods and services.
Toys "R" Us, Inc. v. Step Two, S.A was a case in the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit which set precedent in this circuit for its application of the "Zippo" test in determining the validity of a claim to personal jurisdiction based on the interactivity of a website. This case was presented as an appeal to a ruling from the District Court which denied Toys "R" Us' request for jurisdictional discovery and dismissed the case over lack of personal jurisdiction. The appellate court held that the denial of jurisdictional discovery was in error, and remanded the case to be reconsidered once this discovery took place.
Mavrix Photo, Inc. v. Brand Technologies, Inc., 647 F.3d 1218, is a case in American intellectual property law involving personal jurisdiction in the context of internet contacts.
CompuServe, Inc. v. Patterson was a court case heard before the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals which held that contacts and contracts negotiated through the Internet with a party in a different state were sufficient to grant personal jurisdiction in that state. In particular, the court held that Patterson's use of storage, electronic transmission of files, and advertisement through CompuServe's network in Ohio were sufficient to grant Ohio personal jurisdiction over Patterson.
Moseley v. V Secret Catalogue, Inc., 537 U.S. 418 (2003), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States holding that, under the Federal Trademark Dilution Act, a claim of trademark dilution requires proof of actual dilution, not merely a likelihood of dilution. This decision was later superseded by the Trademark Dilution Revision Act of 2006 (TDRA).
Dennis Toeppen is an American entrepreneur and owner of bus company Suburban Express. He was a party to two cases of first impression relating to domain name registration.
Illinois v. Hemi Group, LLC, 622 F.3d 754, was a personal jurisdiction case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois' ruling finding personal jurisdiction based on Internet transactions. In the initial filing, the state of Illinois sued Hemi Group LLC (Hemi) for selling cigarettes to Illinois residents over the Internet in violation of state law and for failing to report those sales in violation of federal law. Hemi moved to dismiss the suit for lack of personal jurisdiction, but the district court found that the Internet transactions provided a basis for Hemi to be sued in Illinois.
Boschetto v. Hansing, 539 F.3d 1011 is a diversity jurisdiction case brought by California resident, Paul Boschetto ("Boschetto") against certain private corporations with their principal place of business in Wisconsin. The case involved the determination of the question whether the sale of an item via the internet consumer-to-consumer trading portal, eBay, by the defendants in Wisconsin to the plaintiff in California, was sufficient to confer personal jurisdiction over a non-resident defendant in the buyer's forum state. At the first instance, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California decided against Boschetto and held that a lone “eBay sale consummated with a California purchaser, was insufficient to establish jurisdiction over any of the defendants.” Boschetto appealed against the decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The appellate court affirmed the decision of the district court and denied relief to Boschetto. The Court became the first federal appellate court to address whether personal jurisdiction in a forum state could be established when an out-of-state resident makes use of an intermediary website accessible by forum-state citizens.
Maritz, Inc. v. Cybergold, Inc., 947 F. Supp. 1328, was a personal jurisdiction case in which the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri ruled that operator of website, for which server was located in California, was subject to personal jurisdiction in Missouri under "commission of a tortious act" provision of Missouri's long-arm statute, §506.500 RSMo. The case was brought before the court by Marits, Inc. alleging that the Cybergold's use of mark for advertising internet site was a trademark infringement. Cybergold moved to dismiss the suit for lack of personal jurisdiction, but the court found that the operational nature of the Internet based service provided a connection for Cybergold to be sued in Missouri.
Cable News Network L.P. v. CNNews.com, 162 F.Supp.2d 484 (2001), was a trademark law case of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, over the use of a registered trademark owned by an American company in the web address of a foreign company. The court ruled that a foreign firm's use of an American trademark in a web address could be a violation of the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, but such a violation requires a show of bad faith.
Blumenthal v. Drudge, 992 F.Supp. 44, was a case of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, over online defamation and whether an Internet service provider has legal liability for defamatory comments made by its users. The ruling became an early precedent upholding the legal protections enjoyed by online businesses as provided by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, though it raised unresolved questions about the legal responsibilities of online journalism.
