Chicago Law Firm Sues Over Hyperlink To Trademarked Name 162
TheSpoom writes "Large Chicago law firm Jones Day are suing internet startup BlockShopper over the issue of whether linking to a business with their trademarked name should be legal. It would seem they are using trademark dilution as a tool to get BlockShopper to cease linking to their website. The EFF has filed an amicus curiae, as might be expected. If Jones Day wins this suit, anyone linking using a trademarked name may be in legal hot water."
News at 11. (Score:5, Funny)
Next in news: all trademarked names sink on Google.
Jones Day Contact Form (Score:5, Funny)
Let 'em know what you think:
http://www.jonesday.com/contact/contact.aspx [jonesday.com]
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Re:Litigious bastards (Score:5, Funny)
p.s. Jones Day [jonesday.com] sucks.
Yes, but... (Score:5, Funny)
How would Microsoft [yahoo.com], Google [microsoft.com], and Yahoo! [google.com] feel about this?
Dan Reidy (Score:5, Funny)
Better yet,
contact the guy in charge:
Daniel E. Reidy
Tel: 1.312.269.4140
Fax: 1.312.782.8585
Email: dereidy@jonesday.com
Jones Day Is Based In Cleveland (Score:4, Funny)
Jones Day was founded in Cleveland and has its largest office there. Moreover, the problem is people linking non-Jones-Day-related stuff to "Jones Day." Pretend I linked your name to "Asshole."
Guess they'll have to sue the phone book, too. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:OK (Score:3, Funny)
Pfft! And they try to gain cred by claiming to be "Pro Bono". I bet they've never even MET Bono. :-)
They're actually pro-SONNY Bono [wikipedia.org], considering their apparent view on copyrights and trademarks.
Re:Yes, but... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Jones Day Is Based In Cleveland (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How not to advertise your business (Score:5, Funny)
I had fun lately with some telemarketer calling to "update their database" - certainly not to try and SELL us anything. This is the last kind of crap we want.
I asked for her fax number so I could fax her our "Database Inclusion Agreemnet". They'd need to fill it out and return it with either the $2,500 annual license fee to include our copyrighted corporate name in their database or the $25,000 "Lifetime License Agreement". I explained that by including us without such agreement and fee we felt they would be guilty of copyright infringement and be referred to our legal department.
Not surprisingly, I got hung up on. I really need to get to work on that inclusion agreement. And get a legal department.
Re:I say we give 'em what they want. (Score:5, Funny)
I'm looking at you funny. WHACHAGONNADOABOUTIT?
Re:I say we give 'em what they want. (Score:3, Funny)
Punish you, obviously.
I hereby call on the power of grayskull to mod parent +5 Funny!
We'll see how you like that!
Re:Yes, but... (Score:5, Funny)
Why, I agree good sir! It's a good thing Jones Day [goatse.cx] didn't patent it first!
Re:Litigious bastards (Score:5, Funny)
You are correct. However, instead of actually looking up the name of the owner of these domains using a WHOIS, the lawyer who wrote the letter seemingly just opened up a phone book and found the same last name as me, and sent the letter there first. This was not my address.
The letter was sent to SOMEONE ELSE first, then back to the attorney, who then finally figured out he had the wrong address. This took almost 2 months before it finally made its way to me. That is why on the letter I posted online, the address is blacked out, since it is one of a completely unrelated party. The only similarity was that they have the same last name as myself.
These guys are on the ball, yes?
Re:Interesting site, BlockShopper (Score:4, Funny)
So you admit that the information is CLASSIFIED!
Re:Death of The Web (Score:2, Funny)
MS has fended off the government by themselves. With Google and Yahoo! backing them, they can wipe this law firm off the map.
Conveniently enough, that's exactly what they want.
Re:How not to advertise your business (Score:3, Funny)
You should have called it a "Database Inclusion Agreemnet Form". That way you could rightly tell her to DIAF.
Re:Litigious bastards (Score:3, Funny)
Who [jonesday.com] are Jones Day [jonesday.com] anyway? How could Jones Day [jonesday.com] be concerned with trademark dilution if nobody outside of their [jonesday.com] own damn office building knows who they are?
Congratulations, user 1125189, you've won a free trip to glorious Cleveland, Ohio, courtesy of Jones Day - One Firm Worlwide. Please proceed to your front door, where our siren-topped courtesy vehicle will pick you up in twenty minutes.
Re:Litigious bastards (Score:3, Funny)
One trick he seems to use is that when a lawyer refuses to work for him because they haven't been paid he just finds another lawyer and uses them to sue the previous one.
Re:Litigious bastards (Score:3, Funny)
Is there something about real estate where the blinders to the outside world are so intense, that they stop the line of thought the prevents a company from considering the 'law of unintended consequences'?
They didn't write that one.