trademark

Another court has decided use of trademarked terms in metatags and keyword advertising does not constitute trademark infringement, but the issue is far from settled and only gets more complicated as more courts hear arguments from both sides.

Just when you thought it was over: May 19 was the deadline for the man who would be SEO trademark holder to respond to notices of opposition to his trademark application (which were filed by SEOmoz, Arteworks, Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning, SEO.com, Jonathan Hochman, and Rhea Drysdale). Sarah Bird, Esq., of SEOmoz filed for default judgment in the case on Tuesday.

Earlier this month we informed our readers that a guy named Jason Gambert had been running around in the Trademark Office trying to get the term Search Engine Optimization (SEO) trademarked. Well his wish just ran into a brick wall and now things have gotten really nasty.

Sarah Bird, Esquire, of SEOmoz, Inc., happened upon the applicant’s request as she was working on some trademarks for SEOmoz. Not only is the applicant actually trying to obtain a trademark for the mark “SEO,” but he is also already on the way to the publication process.   

We can only expect this issue to be brought before the courts more and more, which might mean it is eventually decided by much higher courts: Does targeting your competitor's trademark keyword in search ads constitute "use in commerce," and thus a trademark violation.

Call it a unit of knowledge, but beware of calling it a 'knol', as Google has applied to trademark the term.

The domain names perfumebay.com and perfume-bay.com looked a little too much like online marketplace eBay's trademarked name, an appeals court has ruled.

Greg Lastowka is an Associate Professor of Law at the Rutgers School of Law, Camden, and he finished a (draft) paper titled Google’s Law [PDF], which he says is a discussion of trademark law matters and the suits against Google for its AdWords practices (with some general Google history thrown in). Greg wraps it up for us: